Got

Numbers?
 How much
Volume 20, Number 5 May/June 2021

is enough?
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Departments
Cover art © 2012 by Brian Biggs; “Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci,” excerpted
from Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci © 2010 by Joseph D’Agnese; John O’Brien,
Illustrator. Reprinted by permission of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC d/b/a
Henry Holt and Company. All Rights Reserved. “Who Needs Numbers?” text ©

2 Nosy News
2012 by Cheryl Bardoe; “Can Animals Count?” text © 2012 by Laura McLain
Madsen, art © 2012 by Slug Signorino; “Magic Square,” text © 2015 by Ivars
Peterson; “What are the Odds?” art © 2015 by Ed Shems.

4 Nestor’s Dock
Photo acknowledgments: 2 (BC) Courtesy of Funwen Wei; 3 (RC) NASA;
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29 Ask Ask
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Suggested for ages 7 to 10.
 page 16
Features M + V = ?

6 Blockhead
by Joseph D’Agnese

14 Who Needs Numbers?

by Cheryl Bardoe
18 The Wheat on the Chessboard
page 23
20 Can Animals Count?
by Laura McLain Madsen
e?
min

24 What Are the Odds? ar

e

y
an
26 Bot’s Best Number Tricks
m
How

re yo u a n o
A
ut
lier
?

page 24

Panda Poop Bath
Wild pandas are shy animals. There’s
still a lot we don’t know about them.
Including, why do they like to roll in
horse poop?
Scientists studying wild pandas
first noticed this odd behavior many
years ago. So they set up cameras
in the woods to spy on the reclusive
bears. They filmed them for many
years. And they saw that in winter,
pandas often liked to roll in fresh
horse dung. After a horse passes
through the woods, pandas come
down to the trail to check out the
pile of poop the horse leaves behind.
After that bath
you need a bath!
2 ask
by
Elizabeth
Preston
Usually, animals avoid each other’s
poop. But these pandas sniff the
dung, and sometimes roll in it.
Then they use their paws to rub it
all over their bodies.
Why do the pandas do this? No
one’s sure. But one possibility is
that it might help pandas better
stand the cold. They take more
poop baths in colder weather.
Pandas don’t hibernate in winter,
and they don’t have as much body
fat as other bears. Fresh horse
poop contains chemicals that may
dull the sense of cold.
A wild panda
tries on a cozy
coat of fresh
horse dung.
Compost keeps
me warm!
 The Weight of Us
Imagine putting every animal in the world
onto a giant scale. You’d pile up the cats
and dogs, fish and birds, elephants and
microbes too small to see. People, too.
Then imagine adding all the plants and
other living things. The total would be
Earth’s biomass. It’s the weight of all life.
Now picture another scale loaded with
everything humans have made or built.
Highways, houses, plastic bags, books,
cars—all of it. Scientists say the weight
of all these things has been growing
every year. And they estimate that
as of 2020, human-made things weigh
more than Earth’s biomass. That’s a lot
of stuff.

So how many
acorns do we
need to win?

art © 2021 by Kara Mitchell

Space Dust Delivery Hayabusa2 at
the asteroid
Ryugu.
In December, a very special package plopped down in
the Australian desert. It was a capsule about the size
of a large frying pan. Inside were samples of dirt and All tidy
gas from a distant asteroid. now!

A Japanese spacecraft called Hayabusa2 collected

the samples last year. The spacecraft spent six years
traveling to the asteroid, called Ryugu, and back.
Ryugu is a small asteroid that orbits the sun between
Mars and Earth. Hayabusa2 first flew around the
asteroid, taking pictures and studying it from space.
It landed probes and came close enough to suck up
samples of dust. Then it flew back, ejecting a capsule
to drop the samples down to Earth. Now that those This dish
bits of space rock have landed safely, scientists will holds dust
collected from
study them to learn more about the history of our an asteroid.
solar system and the nature of asteroids.
ask 3
 Hey Dad, can
you help us They show you
I don’t
figure out this five ways to solve
understand this
math problem? the same problem!
new math.

Why did they

In my day we just change math? I don’t understand
memorized the these weird new
I’ll bet kids in numbers. In my day we
times tables and
the past had it used I, V, and X.
we were done.
so much easier
than us.

What’s a zero? So why are we

See, this says five talking about it!
thousand, fifty six... What is It’s a
or is it fifty four? that? zero.

It means nothing.

Instead of
a space!

4 ask
 I don’t understand
I can’t help you with this abacus
your fancy pyramid-
thing. Why would anyone need
building math.
to count so high?

In my day we just piled

up rocks and that was
I have caught That’s great,
good enough for us.
many fish. Dad! How many?

I don’t understand
One, two, One, two, three, four, this new math!
many! five! See, with new
number words you can
keep counting!

ask 5
 Blockhead Y ou can call me Blockhead.
Everyone else does.
One day when I was
just a boy, Maestro wrote out a
The Life of math problem and gave us 10
minutes to solve it. I solved it in

Fibonacci
two seconds.
That’s the way I am with
numbers. I have loved them since
I was very little. Everywhere I
by Joseph D’Agnese
looked in my parents’ home,
art by John O’Brien
there was something to count.
That day in class, the other
students did their math on
abacuses and wrote out
their answers in Roman
numerals.

Anyone home?

6 ask
It was time-consuming, but that’s
how we did our math back then. As I
waited for them to finish, I got bored.
I counted 12 birds in a tree
outside. How many legs did all those
birds have? I wondered. How many
eyes? How many wings? And if each
bird sang for two seconds, one bird
after the other, how long would it
take all of them to sing? These were
such beautiful questions that I started “A-ha!” Maestro cried. “That’s the
daydreaming. trouble! There will be no thinking in
“Leonardo Fibonaccio!” cried this classroom—only working! You’re
Maestro. “How dare you daydream in nothing but an absent-minded, lazy
my class!” dreamer, you ... you ... BLOCKHEAD!”
“But sir,” I said, “I was thinking—" The other kids laughed.

ask 7
 “BLOCKHEAD! BLOCKHEAD!”
Hey, no
calling names! they cried.
I was so sad that I ran out of
school and into the streets of Pisa. I
let the noise of the city swallow me
up. What a wonderful city it was! The
year was 1178, and Pisa was one of
the greatest cities in all of Italy.
In the churchyard, workers were
building a new bell tower. Something
had gone seriously wrong with the
builder’s math!
8 ask
All around me I saw and heard
the glory of numbers. So many people
were using math in their work. My
head was swimming. I was so excited
that I didn’t watch where I was going.
“Stop daydreaming!” a lady cried.
“What are you, a blockhead?”
That night, my father was angry.
“The whole city is talking!” he yelled.
“Everyone says my son is an idiot.
They call you Blockhead. I can’t have
that.”
“Perhaps you are being too hard
on the boy, Signor Bonaccio,” said my
father’s adviser, Alfredo.
“Silence!” cried father.
“Leonardo, soon you will leave with
me for Africa. That will put an end
to these nicknames. I’ll make a
merchant of you yet!”
“Yuck,” I thought. “Who wants
to be a merchant?”
The night before we sailed, I
couldn’t sleep. I watched sadly
as a shooting star fell into
I wasn’t
anywhere near it!
 my new home, I noticed that
the Arab merchants didn’t
use Roman numerals. They
used numerals they had
borrowed from the Hindu
people in India.
Back home, we wrote this:
XVIII. Here, the merchants
wrote this: 18.
Roman numerals
See how much easier it half price!
is? I wanted so much to learn
these numerals.
By day I did my father’s
accounts. At night, I learned
the new numbers.
When I got older, my
father sometimes sent me on
business trips. When I wasn’t
working, I sought out wise
men in every city.
the ocean. In the star’s light I saw
Alfredo. He waited for me to dry my
tears.
“I think people are happiest when
they know what pleases them,” said
Alfredo. “Me, I love cheese. And you,
Master Leonardo, what makes you
happiest?”
“Numbers,” I said without
thinking.
“Then you should learn all you
can about them. That way you will
always be happy.”
I decided to take Alfredo’s advice.
My father took me to live in a city
called Bugia in northern Africa. In

ask 9
 In Egypt, I learned how the
ancient pharaohs and their subjects
had used fractions. I measured my
way through Istanbul, Turkey, and
Damascus, Syria. In Greece, I learned
about geometry from ancient books.
In Sicily, I put my division and sub-
I’m putting my division
and subtraction skills
traction skills to good use. In France
to good use. ... well ... in France I ate fish soup.
One day I began to write a book
about Indian-Arabic numerals. I
10 ask
tossed some riddles into it, like this
one:
There was a man who put two
baby rabbits in a field. It takes rabbits
one month to grow up and be ready
to have babies. And it takes them one
more month to give birth to a pair of
baby rabbits. Every month a pair of
grown-up rabbits gives birth to a new
pair of baby rabbits. How many pairs
of rabbits will the man have at the end
of a year?
Alfredo tried to solve it, but he
couldn’t.
Then I showed him how to solve
the problem.
Come back
here, you!
 On the very first day, you’d have Everyone laughed. After all, he
1 pair of baby rabbits. was the emperor.
At the end of Month 1, you’d I felt proud. But one day, when
have 1 grown-up pair ready to have I was back in Pisa, I overheard
babies. some people talking in the market-
End of Month 2: 1 grown-up pair, place. “That’s Fibonaccio,” said a
1 baby pair. man. “He’s the one who says we
End of Month 3: 2 grown-up should use those numerals from
pairs, 1 baby pair. India.”
End of Month 4: 3 grown-up “What’s wrong with the old
pairs, 2 baby pairs. numerals?” asked
End of Month 5: 5 grown-up another. “If they
pairs, 3 baby pairs. were good enough
Then I noticed you don’t even for the Romans,
have to write out the whole problem. they’re good enough
To get the next number in for me!”
the pattern, just add the last two “What a
numbers: blockhead!”
1 + 1 =2, Suddenly I was
1 + 2 = 3, sad again. “What
2 + 3 = 5 ... and so on. good is all my work
Here are the first few numbers of if people don’t
the pattern: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, listen?” I thought.
55, 89, 144, 233, 377. “People will always
If you don’t watch out, you’ll remember me as a
have 233 pairs of rabbits in a year! blockhead.”
(Or 377 if you start with a grown-up I wondered what my old friend A genius is never
recognized in
pair!) Alfredo would have said. Suddenly their own time.
News of my work reached it was as if he were there with me.
Frederick II, ruler of the Holy Roman “Don’t listen to these fools,
Empire. When I visited his palace, Leonardo!” roared Alfredo.
his wise men challenged me with a “Aren’t these numbers of yours
bunch of really hard math problems. important?”
But I solved them in no time. “This “I certainly think so!” I said.
Leonardo is one smart cookie,” said “Someday Indian-Arabic numerals
Frederick.

ask 11
 will be known all over the world.
Why, the more I study them, the more
amazed I am by them!”
With that, I pointed to a flower
on the beach. “How many petals does
this flower have?”
I know how
that’s going to
Alfredo counted and answered,
come out. “21.”
“And this flower?”
He loves me... “13” he replied. “So what?”
But I did not reply quickly.
Instead, we walked along the
beach all night, counting things.
We counted three-petal
flowers, five-petal flowers, and
eight-petal flowers.
We counted to five on the arms of
a starfish and inside an apple.
12 ask
“See, Alfredo?” I said. “In every-
thing that I count, everywhere I look
I keep finding the same numbers. Do
you recognize them?”
Alfredo recited them aloud. “1,
1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 ... my
goodness!” he cried. “They are the
numbers from your rabbit problem!”
“Exactly,” I said. “And we’re just
getting started!”
“Lately I’ve been thinking about
those numbers in a different way.
Watch!”
In the sand I drew one tiny square
and one more tiny square next to it.
Next came a shape 2 squares high
and 2 squares wide.
Then a 3-by-3 square shape.
 Then a 5-by-5 square shape, an Alfredo was delighted. “From
8-by-8 square shape, and a 13-by-13 the tiniest plant to the prettiest
square shape. pinecone,
“I could go on and on,” I said, from the tallest
“but it just wouldn’t look right unless flower to the
I connected them ... like this.” wettest wave
Can you guess what I drew inside to the most
then? Alfredo sure couldn’t. wondrous,
“A spiral!” I shouted. “You can far-off galaxy
make a spiral with my numbers!” ... all these
“How magnificent!” said Alfredo. are home to
“Yes, it is,” I said. “But I still your numbers,
don’t understand why these numbers Leonardo.”
are so special.” I am old
“Don’t you see, Leonardo?" said now, but
Alfredo. “These are the numbers numbers still
Mother Nature uses to order the make me
universe. She has hidden them in happy. In all
many places. And until now, no one my years, I have never told anyone
has found her secret.” the secret I shared with Alfredo that
Alfredo’s words filled my heart night. But now I’ve told you. Look
with joy. All my life people had called through the pictures in this story
me Blockhead because I daydreamed and you will find my numbers just You’re a math problem!
about numbers. But how could as they are in real life. Now you see Who knew?

that be bad? Mother Nature loved why I don’t mind being called
numbers too! Blockhead, after all!

ask 13
 Who Needs
NUMBERS?
And how many do you really need?

by Cheryl Bardoe
art by Rupert van Wyk

L
ong ago, people
didn’t need a lot of
fancy numbers. After
all, you know who your
children are; why would
you need to know that
there are “4” of them?
But when small villages The First Counters 35,000–20,000 BCE
Tally marks—making a single line for each object
grew into big cities, people
counted—were probably the earliest numbers. Ancient
started to need bigger numbers animal bones scratched with tally marks have been
to count sacks of grain, make found in Africa and Europe. This 25,000-year-old
trades, and collect taxes. bone, called the Ishango bone, is from the Congo.
Regular groups of marks on each side show that
someone was counting—though we don’t know what.
Antelopes killed? Days gone by? Pies?

Body Counting
Some Pacific Island
cultures count using If you ask this
the whole body. Different New Guinean how many
body parts are assigned a marbles are in his collection,
different number, and the name and he taps his nose twice, then his
of that part also means that number. right wrist, how many does he have?
Answer: 34
14 ask
Sumer (ancient Iraq) 4000 BCE
Numbers really took off in the ancient kingdom of
Sumer. Traders there hit on the great idea of using
little clay tokens instead of lugging around their goats
and chickens and wine jars. When a deal was made, they
sealed the tokens in a clay envelope and marked the wet
clay to show what was inside. Egypt 3000 BCE
Eventually, they realized that The ancient Egyptians used a
they didn’t even need lot of math in their ambitious
tokens—they could jus building projects, and to keep
use the marks. They track of bags of grain and
invented new symbols other stuff. They counted by
to show how many tens (as we do) and wrote
things were being their numbers in pictures, or
traded—a wedge hieroglyphs. They had numbers
meant 1, but a wedge up to a million—though only
on its side meant 10. a pharaoh would ever need to
That saved a lot of ti count that high.

Wedgies
Ancient Sumerians and Babylonians made wedge- And when they got to 60, they went back
shaped numbers by pressing a sharp stick into wet to a single wedge, but made it bigger.
clay. This form of writing is called cuneiform.
They counted in groups of 10, 20, and 60. Our 60 Can you read this Sumerian number?
seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour are
I can’t
left over from the Sumerian counting system. process that!
For 1, they made one wedge:
, and so on.
When they got to
, 2 was , 3 was

10, they turned it on its side:

=
Answer: 88
ask 15
 68
333 lll lll

lll
808

lllll
3,052 ll
lllll lll

5,902 ll
7,437 llll ll
lll

China 1500 BCE Rome 500 BCE Peru 1200 CE

The ancient Chinese had
at least five different
sets of numbers, used for
counting different kinds
of things. The simplest
were stick numbers. These
were written in columns of
ones, tens, hundreds, and
so on (like our numbers),
but with an empty space
for zero. To help make
sure 3 was not confused
with 30 (or 23 with 5),
the numbers in every
other column were written
sideways.
Greek, Roman, and Hebrew
mathematicians used letters
for their numbers. The
Romans, for example, used
I for 1, V for 5, X for 10,
L for 50, C for 100, and M
for 1,000. This was simple
to remember, but could get
cumbersome. To write 49 it
took nine letters: XXXXVIIII.
It was also not very easy for
figuring sums.
In South America, the Inca came
up with an entirely different
way to note down numbers—by
making knots on strings called
quipus. Different kinds of knots
stood for different numbers,
while the color of the string
may have showed what was being
counted.
The Inca are the most famous
quipu users, but this form of
counting may be very ancient.

Abacus-dabra
An abacus is a counting board using rows of pebbles or beads.
The first row are 1s, next row are 10s, then 100s, and so
on. Beads on top are worth 5 each, and those below are 1
each. Move beads to the center bar to “count” them.
To add and subtract, work left to right, borrowing
and carrying as required. The ancient Sumerians,
Egyptians, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Greeks, and
Romans all used versions of the abacus—even to do
fractions. The abacus is so handy that people used them
until modern times, when they were finally replaced by
pocket calculators.

What does this agile abacus add up to?

Answer: 10,678
16 ask
The Invention of Zero India around 400 CE East Goes West
Can you imagine a world without zero? It’s one thing that the The Indian numbers plus zero
ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Chinese mathematicians revolutionized mathematics and
lacked—they had no number for nothing. soon took the world by storm.
After all, why would you need a number to count not having They were much quicker and
any? In some ways, zero is a very peculiar idea. simpler to write, so math could
By about the year 400, Indian astronomers were writing be done entirely on paper.
numbers almost the same way we do today. Like the Chinese, they Arab mathematicians quickly
used place values—a number stood for 10 times more each space it adopted Indian numbers and
moved to the left, just like on an abacus. Unlike earlier systems, the used them to invent algebra
Indians used a single mark for each digit (1, 2, 3 instead of I, II, and all sorts of other useful
III). This made long numbers much easier to read and work with. ideas. Eventually, the Italian
But for this system to really work it needed something entirely mathematician Fibonacci
new: a number to represent an empty row on the abacus—Nothing. brought the new numbers to
Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to tell 11 from 101 or 1010. Europe around the year 1200—
Zero first appeared as a dot, then as a circle—and eventually and we’ve been counting on
it became a number all its own. them ever since.

Maya Math
The Maya of Central America (200–900 CE) So 1,209 would look like this
were great mathematicians and astronomers. They counted in (Three 400s + no 20s + nine 1s)
groups of 20. They wrote their numbers from bottom to top,
400s
with the bottom row standing for 1s, the next row up for 20s,
then 400s, and so on. They used bean-shaped dots for 1, 20s
twig-shaped lines for 5, and they even had a shell-
shaped symbol for 0! 1s

How many mangoes may this 400s

merry Maya mathematician
musically munch? 20s + =
1s
Answer: 414 + 2,024 = 2,438
ask 17
 The Wheat
on the
Chessboard
An old tale from India

L
ong ago in enjoy my
India, there chessboard
was a wise so much,
mathematician give me a
called Sessa. He single grain
invented a new of wheat
game to amuse on the first
his friend, the square, two
king. He called it grains on
“chess.” The king the second
loved chess and square,
told Sessa to name four for the
anything he liked third, and
as his reward. so on. For
Anything! The king each square
enjoyed boasting of double the
his limitless wealth. art by Julie Paschkis last, as each
But instead of gold, jewels, or elephants, day of play doubles our delight. That
after much thought Sessa told the king will mean more to me than all the
that he wished only some grains of wheat. riches in the world.”
“What?!?” exclaimed the king, greatly “Very well!” said the king, a little
astonished. irritated, thinking that Sessa was
“I am a simple man,” replied Sessa, mocking him. “If wheat is all he wants,”
“and my wants are few. But since you he told his treasurer, “give it to him!”

18 ask
 The first day, the treasurer presented doubling, Sessa has now collected nearly all
Sessa with a single grain of wheat, to the our stores of wheat! What shall we do? If we
huge amusement of the court. continue at this rate the treasury will soon be
The second day, he got two, on a little empty, and I doubt there is enough wheat in the
cushion. The great lords roared with laugh- entire world to pay him!”
ter. But Sessa kept his thoughts to himself. “Impossible!” said the king. But he
On the ninth day, Sessa received 256 checked and double-checked the sums, and
grains, enough to make a small handful. there was no doubt. In horror, he saw that
But the very next day, he had two hand- by square 64, he would owe Sessa a total of
fuls. It took Sessa 16 days to get enough 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains of wheat!
wheat to fill a large bag. But only one He could not even imagine so many
more day to get two bags. The day after, grains—they would make a pile of wheat larger
he had four bags. than the tallest mountain. That much wheat
The courtiers could not be gathered in all
stopped laughing of India for the next 2,000
and started years!
whispering. There was nothing for
By the end of the king to do but call Sessa,
the month, wagons and take back his boasts of
filled with grain limitless wealth.
were rumbling “Sire!” Sessa replied.
toward Sessa’s “Say no more. I am happy
house, and the with what I have already—I
treasurer began forgive you the second half
to look worried. of the chessboard.”
Quaking in his With that, the king and
boots, he went to Sessa remained the best of
Historical note: Though no one knows
see the king. if it is true, this story has been around friends and enjoyed many
“Highness!” for as long as chess, which appeared games of chess together. You can have
he trembled. in northern India about 1,500 years And the clever Sessa got this great
chessboard
“Please look over ago. It is a fun illustration of how the real reward he had for an easy
quickly multiplying numbers can get out per-square
my calculations, wanted all along—a payment plan.
of hand, even if it starts out slowly.
but I don’t think The amount of wheat for just the wiser
they are in error. first square on the second half of the math
By his simple chessboard is as much as the entire king.
first half!

ask 19
by Laura
McLain
Madsen

Can Animals Count?

U
I choose both, nless you don’t like cookies,
of course.
you’ll pick the plate with
three—and so would a
monkey, a bird, or a dog. Animals
don’t have to know the words one,
two, and three, or 1, 2, and 3, to
know that three cookies are yummier
than one.
aws
How Much?
match the Being able to tell more
numbers of from less is one of
d ent objects. the most basic math
talents. And it’s
one that a surprising
number of animals have.
A robin will pick the log with
more mealworms. A salamander will
pick the container with more fruit
flies. Animals will even pick more
of something when it
means they get less
overall. Horses,
for example,
Salamanders
can pick which
is “more” up to
about 3.
will go for three tiny apples over two
much larger ones.
But animals don’t have math
class—why would they need to
count?
Being able to spot the larger of
two groups is useful to animals in
lots of ways. It helps them pick the
bush with more berries, or run to the
larger group of friends. Many fish, for
example, join groups (called shoals)
for protection. If a predator strikes,
a fish in a shoal of 40 is less likely
to become lunch than a fish
Rats can learn
in a shoal of 10. So if a fish
to press a lever has a choice between two
up to 40 times
for a reward.

20 ask
 shoals, it’s better to join the larger of something there
one. A number sense even helps keep is—up to a point.
the peace. When chimpanzee troops Usually, that’s around
meet up in territorial disputes, they four.
only fight if the numbers favor a Even animals we
clear winner. don’t usually think of
as smart can tell the
How Many? difference between
Being able to tell less from more one, two, and three.
is a pretty basic skill—the lowest Fish and honeybees Pigeons can learn to peck at
rung on the math ladder. But many can be trained to get groups in numerical order,
animals can also do a simple form of through a maze by regardless of shape, size, or
how the objects are arranged.
counting, keeping track of how many choosing turns marked
by a certain
Can you tell at a glance or do you have to number of
count? Most people can tell at a glance how
many objects there are in a group, up to about
dots—to find the way out, they
So they can
five. If there are more, we have to count. have to count. count—but can
Some animals, including they rhyme?

pigeons, parrots, crows, and

rats, can count much higher

ask 21
 Parrots can be
taught that “4”
means four objects
of any kind.

Math Tests for Animals

There are different ways scientists can test animals’
numbers up to four. Others think the
counting ability. Some set up tasks, like choosing the
correct door based on the number of spots above number sense works more by com-
it, or the number of bells they hear. paring size. Both animals and humans
Scientists also study whether animals (and find it easiest to pick the largest group
babies) can count by secretly changing the number if it is at least twice as big, whether
of objects and seeing whether the animals notice.
the choice is between 1 and 2 or 1,000
In one experiment, scientists placed mealworms one
by one into a covered hole in a log while a New and 2,000. But it gets harder the
Zealand robin watched. But sometimes they sneaked closer the numbers are in size.
a few out again. Some animals that recognize the
When the robin was allowed to get the worms, it difference between 1, 2, and 3 can
looked around for the “missing” ones if the number
also be taught to sort by numbers.
in the log didn’t match what it saw go in—though
only if at least half were missing. This shows that Both primates and pigeons can learn
the robin was counting. to tap groups of random objects on
a screen in numerical order (the
than three. A pigeon can learn to group with one first, then the group
peck a button exactly 24 times—no with two, and so on). Scientists don’t
I’m sure I had
three!
more, no less—to get a treat. It can know if this ability evolved separately
even remember its place and resume in primates and birds, or if it’s a
counting if interrupted. skill that dates back to a common
These tests have led scientists to ancestor.
think that many animals, including Just one more
humans, are born with a basic and I’ll have
eight eggs!
number sense. Some think we have
an “estimating” sense for large
numbers, and a “counting” sense for
Water birds called coots lay
one egg a day until they have
eight or nine. They also like to
sneakily lay extra eggs in each
other’s nests. But if a coot spots
a strange egg in her nest, she
doesn’t count it toward her total.
22 ask
 eeney,
You can’t fool me! meeney,
I know my brothers miney, mo....
and sisters are
behind there.

However, though animals can chick always ran to

learn that 3 apples is the same the larger hidden
“number” as 3 balls, and that 3 group—proving
comes after 2, they have to be taught that it had been
these facts about each number keeping track in its Ring-tailed lemurs use their noses
to count sets on a touchscreen.
separately. Unlike human children, head.
they never see the general pattern— In another
after learning 1, 2, and 3, they don’t study, monkeys and college students
figure out on their own that a group took the same adding test. Each was
of 4, since it has one more, must shown two pictures with different
come next. numbers of dots. Then they had
to pick a third picture that
2 + 2 = Chimpanzees showed the combined
can do simple
But surely o number, as quickly as
addition and
humans ca subtraction. possible. On this test,
and subtra the monkeys did as
Nope. In well as the people.
fact, many Humans can do a lot
animals share this more with math than a
skill too. Scientists studied pigeon
the math smarts of baby chicks by could ever dream
raising them with yellow balls as of. But as we’re Humans can
their “brothers and sisters.” They let discovering, we use complex
the chick watch as they moved the may not be alone math to figure
balls around behind two screens, in the counting out how the
world works
so that one screen hid more. The club.

ask 23
 2
3 art by Ed Shems
hat
your
4 ces of What
a 4 when are your
ll one die? chances of
5 getting an
8?
6
What
about
7 when you roll
two dice?
8
9 es, so e o ro , eac number
hance—1 in 6— of landing face up.
10 ice, the odds change. That’s because
some numbers than others. Out of
can land, there’s only one way to roll
11 ou’re six times more likely to roll a 7
time you play Parcheesi.
12

Figuring the Odds

To figure out how likely
something is to happen,
mathematicians first count
all the possible times it might
happen (for example, all the
school lunches you eat in a
year). Then they look at how
many times, on average, one
particular outcome DOES
happen (lunch is pizza). So, out
of all the times people swim in
the ocean where sharks live,
how
many
of
those
times
are people
attacked by sharks? It turns your whole life is different
out, not very often. from the chance of being
When counting up the odds, hit by lightning just this
it also matters where and year. And both are higher
when you are. The chance if you live in Florida, which
of being hit by lightning in gets a lot of lightning.

24 ask
the Odds? Be a girl More Likely
If you pick a random person in the US, 1 in 2
what are the chances they will…
Be left-handed
1 in 10 Have a pet that is
not a cat or dog
Have red hair
1 in 33
1 in 100

Be an
identical twin Have 11 fingers
1 in 297 or toes
Get injured
1 in 500
by a toilet
1 in 4,500
Find a four-leafed
clover on the first try
1 in 10,000 Find a pearl in an oyster
1 in 12,000

Win an Oscar Catch a ball at a major-

1 in 33,000 league baseball game
1 in 60,000 Win an Olympic medal
1 in 280,000

ve 20 coin tosses in Be struck by

row come up heads lightning this year
1 in a million 1 in a million Be an astronaut
1 in 1.5 million

Be a billionaire
Become president
1 in 7 million Get bitten
of the United
States by a shark
1 in 30 million 1 in 11.5 million
Win the top lottery prize
1 in 175 million

Get hit by something

falling from space
1 in 1,500 million
Less Likely
ask 25
 Bot's
Best
Sometimes, the only magic power you
need is the right numbers.
See the Future with 1089
To prepare for this trick, announce
that you can predict the
future! With a mystical
flourish, write the
number 1089 on a piece
of paper (but don’t
show the audience what
you’ve written). Seal it in
an envelope and give it to
someone to hold.
Give a volunteer paper and
pencil (or a calculator) and have her:
1. Pick a 3-digit number in which the 1 431
first and last digits differ by more
than 1 (so 235 is OK, but not 231).
2. Reverse the number and subtract 2 431
the smaller from the larger.
-134
3. Reverse that number and add the
297
two numbers. The sum should be
1089 (if it isn’t, recheck the math). 3 792
Now tell your friend to open the +297
envelope and look at the paper.
How did you know the answer
would be 1089?
Amazingly, the answer is ALWAYS 1089,
no matter what number you start with!
26 ask
art by
Thor Wickstrom
Stacked Dice
Use your amazing mental
powers to add up the
numbers on the hidden
faces of a stack of dice!
To do this trick, you’ll
need two or more dice. Ask a
volunteer to stack them in any way.
To figure out the sum of all the hidden
sides, just multiply the number of dice by 7,
and subtract the top face, which you can see.
So, if there are 3 dice and the top is showing
a 5, the hidden faces add up to 7 x 3 = 21,
minus 5 = 16.
Announce your result. Have your friend
unstack the dice and add up the faces—he
will be amazed!
What’s the secret? Knowing that the
oppos te sid s of a die always dd up o 7
 Hidden Message
Prepare for this trick by
writing a message on a sticky
note and hiding it on page 9
of any book in the room (say,
To the Nines the family dictionary).
Nine is an odd number in many ways. For Give a volunteer a piece of paper and a pencil (and
one thing, the digits of multiples of 9 always maybe a calculator) and have her write down any 4-digit
eventually add up to 9: number in which all the digits are different (for example,
9 x 2 = 18 1 + 8 = 9! 2543). She doesn’t even have to tell 1
9x3=2 2 + 7 = 9! you what the number is! Next, have her: 4253
9 x 4 = 36 3 + 6 = 9! 1. Jumble up the digits in any order to
No matter how large the number, just make a new number.
keep adding the digits of the answer 2. Subtract the smaller number from 2 4253
together, and eventually you’ll get 9. the larger. -2543
9 x 73 = 657 3. Add up the digits of the new number. 1710
6+5+7 = 18 If the answer has more than one digit,
1+8 = 9! add them again, until it is a single 3
63 x 99 = 6,237 number. Now, tell your friend to look at
1+7+1+0=
that page in the dictionary.
6+2+3+7 = 18
There’s your note, since the
1+8 = 9!
answer will always be 9!
Speed Demon
Nines can also make you look Ask a volunteer to fill in the first The trick? Below each
like a speedy arithmetic whiz. and third rows with any numbers, number, write the number
Draw 4 rows of 5 spaces and you will instantly complete the that will add up to 9!
each, like this: sum that has the answer 199,998.
So your friend might write:

This will work no matter what

numbers your friend writes in the
first and third rows.

ask 27
 Guess the Card
For this trick you need any 25 playing cards or
trading cards (they can have anything on them, as
long as they’re all different).
1
Have a volunteer shuffle the cards and
mentally pick one—but don’t tell you which. You’ll
have to guess!
1. Set out 5 cards (face-up or face-down) to begin
5 piles, then add cards in the same order so each
pile gets a second card, then each a third, etc.
2. Ask your friend to point to the pile that
contains his chosen
3 card (he can check
the piles if he wants). What’s the secret? Though it
3. Now stack up the seems like mind reading, this trick
5 piles to make one is really about geometry. The first
again—but make sure time you combine the 5 piles, you
that the pile with your are putting the chosen card into
friend’s card is in the the middle column. The second time
middle (the third pile gets it into the middle row.
you pick up). Do this casually, as if it doesn’t matter
(though it does!). 6
4. Without shuffling, lay the cards out again as in
Step 1 and again have your friend point to the stack
with his card.
5. Combine the piles one more time, again putting
the pile with the magic card in the middle.
6. Now, lay the cards out again one final time, in the
same way, but this time so that you can see all the
cards (make columns rather than piles). Dramatically
select your friend’s card! The secret card will be the
middle card in the middle row. You can also find it in
the deck without laying out the cards—your friend’s
card will be card 13 from the top.

28 ask
Hey, Briar! Logan Like many instruments, From what? A stick Close! People have been plucking stringed
in Maine wants to guitars didn’t really have and a string? instruments for over 5,000 years. Every
know, who invented one inventor. They evolved place and time has come up with their own
the guitar? over a long, long time. versions.

Changes made by many people eventually gave us the

guitars we play today. And many other variations.

Strings over a hollow With a flat neck, I can Oud (Middle East) Theorbo (Europe)
box! So twangy! make chords.
Pipa (China)
Tar (Iran)
Lute
(Europe)

Where did the

Bow Harp Tanbur curvy guitar
North Africa Central Asia shape come from?
4000 BCE 3000 BCE

Curvy 12-string lutes called

Later guitar-
vihuelas appeared in Spain
makers
in the 1500s. Then someone
tinkered with
made a smaller version with
the body shape
just four strings. The new
to give them a
little guitarras were meant
better tone,
to be strummed to
and added What about
accompany singing. They Serenading
more strings. electric guitars?
soon became very popular! made E-Z!

In the 1930s, musician George So, ready to rock?

Beauchamp and electrical engineer Adolph
Rickenbacker figured out how to turn Serenade for inventor
the vibrations of strings into electric with 36 strings!
Write to us at:
signals to send to a speaker. With Ask Ask
an amplifier, electric guitars could get 1 East Erie Street
REALLY LOUD and make weird wavy Suite 525, PMB4136
Chicago, IL 60611
sounds. Just in time for Rock and Roll!
Or have your parents email us
ask@cricketmedia.com
 Send your letters to Ask, 1 East Erie Street,
Suite 525, PMB4136, Chicago, IL 60611,
In our January issue or have your parent/guardian email us at
ask@cricketmedia.com.
we asked you to
imagine your perfect
Neva W.,
bed. Thanks to all you
age 7,
dreamy dozers for New Mexico
sharing your creations!
Has room
Sweet dreams to all! for friends
to sleep over
ALL THE
TIME!

Linnea T.,
age 9, Maine
Rosalie W., age 9.5,
Pennsylvania

The Underwater Bed

Benjamin W., Age 9,
New York
My dream bed would be
underwater, because I
love the ocean and fish. Harlow M., age 10, California.

Dear Whatson, Dear Ayla, Dear Marvin,

Hi! How are you? I’m doing
good. How many books do you
read every day? What is your
favorite book? Mine is The
Care and Feeding of a Pet
Black Hole.
Ayla T., age 9,
Massachusetts
Thanks for sharing! I’m glad
you’re well. Me too. That looks
like a good book—I’m going to
start it tomorrow. Black holes
certainly can be troublesome
pets. That’s why I keep mine
in the worm-hole jar.
Your friend,
Whatson
I have a prank you can play
on Avery. When he’s counting
acorns, keep saying “oh, you
missed one!” You can make
him count the first one over
and over. Then he will think
he has waaay more than he
actually has.
Lily B.,
Arizona

30 ask
 Irene’s Spot
Monster Bed Irene H.,
Julian R., age 6,
age 8, Texas
Relaxer bed Wisconsin
Valerie F., age 8, California

Amazing Bed
William K., My Avocado Bed
age 8, Ksenia P.,
Pennsylvania age 10

The Toilet Bed!

Alex P., age 8, Michigan

Sleeping on a Dragon
Clara S., age 6, Massachusetts Ian L., age 10, California Sophia J., age 9, New Jersey

Dear Lily, Dear Ask, imaginary animal. But he has a

Thanks! I’m sure if Bot had
thought of this one, he would
have put it at the top of his
number tricks list! I’m also
thinking of challenging Avery
to make a magic square that
all adds up to 1. What do you
think?
Pranks Away!
Marvin
I want to know, is the Easter
bunny real? My 2nd question
is, how many eggs can an
Easter bunny produce?
Adrian,
New Mexico
Dear Adrian,
I’m afraid my good friend the
Easter Bunny is entirely an
long history. Bunnies and eggs
are both signs of spring, so
somewhere along the way they
got stuck together into an egg-
toting bunny, celebrating spring.
But being imaginary has some
advantages. He can lay as many
eggs as you can imagine!
Happy hunting,
Bone Pony

ask 31
 May/June Contest

The Best Number

Numbers are so clever, mysterious, and O grand 42!
Even, solid, and true!
delicious. Do you have a special favorite? So delectably divisible
It cannot be risible
11, because it’s so easy to multiply? 26, To rave you're my fave,
because it looks like a swan? For this so I do!

month’s contest, celebrate your favorite

wonderful number with a flattering
portrait, poem, or thank-you card that
lets the world know just how special it
is.We’ll multiply the most magnificent
in an upcoming issue of Ask.

Contest Rules:
1. Your contest entry must be your very
own work. Ideas and words should not
be copied.
2. Be sure to include your name, age, and
state on your entry.
3. Only one entry per person, please.
4. If you want your work returned, enclose
a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
5. Your entry must include a note from a
parent or guardian, saying it’s your own
work and that no one helped you, and
that Ask has permission to publish it in
print and online.
6. For information on the Children’s Online
Privacy Protection Act, see the Privacy
Policy page at cricketmedia.com.
7. Email a photo or scan of artwork to:
ask@cricketmedia.com, or mail to:
Ask, 1 East Erie Street, Suite 525,
PMB4136, Chicago, IL 60611
Entries must be postmarked or emailed
by June 30, 2021.
8. We will publish the winning entries in an
upcoming issue of Ask.

Can’t wait to hear

what Layla thinks
Share your curiosity and New message
about this article! your favorite magazines from Grandpa!

with someone you lo

o visit cricketmedia.com/family to l
Grandma

Aunt
Dad

Who will you share with?

32

Bot's
Magic Squares
You can do magical things with a bunch a numbers.
Take 1 through 9. If you put them in
a square grid in just the right way….
Every row, column, and diagonal
adds up to 15! The order of the
numbers matters. If two numbers
trade places, it won’t work any more.
Squares like this where the columns,
rows, and diagonals add up to the same
number are called magic squares.
by Ivars Peters
art by Thor Wickstrom
Chinese scholars knew about the 1 to 9
square more than 2,000 years ago. They
called it the Lo Shu and believed that it
had magic powers.
Magic squares are fun to play with.
Math teacher Ron Lancaster once came
up with this one using just 1’s and 8’s.
The amazing thing about his square is that
it remains a magic square if you turn it
upside down or look at in a mirror!
Can you arrange the numbers 1
through 16 into a 4 X 4 grid where every
row, column, and diagonal adds up to 34?
Mathematicians have figured out that
there are 880 different ways to do this.
Happy gridding!