Math Anomaly Busted

A friend sent me one of those "fun" math problems where you work your way through a series of math calculations to arrive at some amazing and inexplicable conclusion which is usually your birthday, social security number, or the number of freckles on your arm. Having seen these before, I finally decided to deconstruct this recent formula and figure out exactly what's going on. I know, too much excitement for a Monday. I have already achieved this week's pinnacle of entusiasm and the rest of the week is now on a downward spiral of boringness. Anyway, here's the problem followed by my deconstruction and the reason why it's not a numerical miracle... a numiracle.

Subj: Unbelievable Math Problem

Here is a math trick so unbelievable that it will stump you. Personally, I would like to know who came up with this and why that person is not running the country!

1. Grab a calculator. (you won't be able to do this one in your head)
2. Key in the first three digits of your phone number (NOT the area)
3. Multiply by 80
4. Add 1
5. Multiply by 250
6. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number
7. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number again.
8. Subtract 250
9. Divide number by 2

Do you recognize the answer?

Steps 3 & 5 can be combined (80*250=20,000). You can multiply the first three digits of your phone number by 20,000 which essentially multiplies it by 2 and moves the decimal place over enough where you can slip in the last four digits (X 2).

Steps 4 & 8 are there to make it more complicated and to throw you off. If you take 1 (step 4), multiply it by 250 (step 5) which equals 250, then subtract 250 (step 8) you're just creating extraneous work.

So, all we're really doing is multiplying and dividing everything by two. Let me demonstrate with my phone number (586-0101)...

586 * 20,000 = 11,720,000 <= multipling by 2 and shifting the numbers over to leave space for the next step
0101 * 2 = 0202
Totaled = 11,720,202
Divided by 2 = 5,860,101