All of the students at Musica Mundi School are super-gifted young musicians who develop their talents even further, thanks to their dedication, daily hard work, and of course lots of really top-class Music teaching that they receive at the school.
Naturally, Music is a top-priority subject and passion in the lives of all the students.
For me, it’s also very nice that some of the young stars are quite keenly interested in Mathematics, too! One such star is Cansu, a Turkish musician and A-level Maths student, who’s having one of her happiest-ever weekends after winning in Paris the 2nd Prize in the ‘18ème Concours International de Piano de Chatou’.
This blog post is specially dedicated to the two lovely ladies pictured here.
There are numerous nice surprises prepared for the sweet sisters, and you can also enjoy following their treasure trail of goodies about to appear…!
The lady on our right, when facing the photo, is Annabel, the wonderful House Mother at Musica Mundi School (where I work as the Mathematics Teacher). We’re wishing her sister a fabulous, fun birthday today. She has a beautiful name that you’ll discover via a pair of puzzles!!
Zooming Zoe acquired her title by making incredibly fast improvements in her recent Maths results!
It’s lovely to see her confidence zooming way up, and she more than deserves some nice, sneaky surprises now!
Today, the four-digit number 1112 comes to mind, for Zoe is saying ‘Au revoir’ to 11 as she’s turning 12. Happy birthday, young star!
With super-fun ‘Magic Maths’, you learn to expect the unexpected…so… whirl 1112 around to get 2111 ! Multiply it by yesterday’s 11, and the result 11 x 2111 = 23221 is beautiful for Zoe on her birthday, 23.2.21 today!
Today, February 20, is the 20th birthday of Kristina, a super-talented violinist who is also very good at Mathematics.
Let’s warm up with the following steps in honour of Kristina…
Start with 93, the ordinal number of this blog post.
Add on 100, for Kristina’s magical performances on the violin.
Multiply by my favourite number, 3.
Since I love it so much, let’s repeat step number 3 !!
Kristina wouldn’t need a calculator to figure out (93 + 100) x 3 x 3 = 1737,
and I’m pretty sure the result would make her laugh again–at least a little bit!–as I’ve often cooked up quick, fun puzzles resulting in the number 1737, because Kristina’s treasured violin dates way back to that very year!
The Bible contains so many true, perfect messages that can strengthen us all with hope and reassurance of happiness in Heaven after our short lives on Earth now, which are like moments compared to the eternal gift prepared for us. We just need to believe in, and accept, the gift with gratitude to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit within us, freely available as a constant guide to help us now. With all sincerity, we should realise now that words within John 14:2 give us an even lovelier message than in any sweet Valentine card: “There are many rooms in my Father’s house, and I am going to prepare a place for you. I would not tell you this if it were not so.”-Good News Translation.
Just a few days ago, I received a lovely surprise message from Bob Mitchell, a Scottish chess friend whom I haven’t seen for very many years. I remembered Bob immediately, as he was always friendly and funny as well as being a talented, attacking chess player. The descriptive words FUN BATTLE GOER come quickly to mind!
Here’s a sneaky word puzzle in Bob’s honour: rearrange the letters of
FUN BATTLE GOER
to make a proper 13-letter English word which also describes Bob!
Until yesterday, I had different ideas about what blog post #90 might be, but I know from The Bible and from personal experience that “…with The Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
As you may already know from blog post #89 posted two days ago, very nice Norwegian friends of mine will today be celebrating the birthday of Yngvild, the mum in their family. So, today’s article here is at least partly to give them a lovely, extra surprise!
Let’s start with the number 1021, like going back a thousand years for a moment.
Since my absolute favourite number is three, multiply 1021 by your favourite three-digit whole number !
Multiply by 7, the number of letters in YNGVILD.
Multiply by 13, the total number of letters in HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
Multiply by 11, the total number of letters in GOD BLESS YOU.
Now DIVIDE by your personal, favourite three-digit number that you used in step 2.
Thank you for getting 1022021
to celebrate Yngvild’s birthday today, 10.2.2021 !
Now we have a sneaky second version of the numbers surprise, and this time it’s for YOU and for EVERYONE!!
Let’s again start with the number 1021, like going back a thousand years for a moment.
Since my absolute favourite number is three, multiply 1021 by your favourite three-digit whole number (e.g. by 456).
Multiply by 7, the number of letters in YNGVILD.
Multiply by 13, the total number of letters in HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
Multiply by 11, the total number of letters in GOD BLESS YOU.
Now DIVIDE by 1021.
Hopefully you like seeing your favourite three-digit number repeated in your answer!
Wishing everyone a really happy day now,
Paul Motwani xxx
P.S.
Happy listening if you’d like to enjoy a beautiful song via
Sometimes I wish that I could personally give a nice present to everyone on their birthday! I do believe that all good and beautiful things will be possible in Heaven, where everything will be infinitely more special than any human mind can imagine now.
Since I try to never take the very precious gift of Time for granted, this particular blog post is coming two days early…before the birthday on Wednesday, 10 February, of Yngvild, the mother in a really nice Norwegian family I know.
When they previously lived in Belgium, I often had the great pleasure of doing Maths &/or Chess with Yngvild’s and Sigve’s three lovely children. They especially liked sneaky bonus surprises, and so let’s have one right now, in advance of Yngvild’s birthday!
Based on the high number of jokes that I’ve cracked with my students, my colleagues and the school leaders at Musica Mundi School, some of them concluded (correctly) that my wife and my family must be “very courageous” to bear with such humour at home, too!
I was planning to say to Headmaster Herman that I’m only going to teach subtraction from now on because I just want to make a difference, but he’d have to deduct more points from my dossier…though I might be gifted a high-speed, one-way trip to the moon!
Some hours ago, I got to enjoy yet another unforgettably beautiful and inspiring concert at Musica Mundi School. Warm congratulations to all the wonderful, hardworking students and the very dedicated teachers who helped to prepare them so well.
Afterwards, I wrote the following bold words (given below), which are not only meant positively and most sincerely, but which also have a very special property. Can you discover precisely what is special about the words…!? (A solution is given at the end of the article.)
Show passion solving!
Dear God,
I begin to really love it there, & I said that!
i.e., ‘Ace, best school prospers. Voila!’
How’s that?
Are there going to be real CDs
e.g. harps, oboes, cellos, pianos, violas & violins?
Paul Motwani 