Blog Post #169: Steps Towards Heaven 💕

Dear Readers,

I will begin by sharing that several very dear people (who were all really close to me for most of my life so far) passed on this year, but I believe with total certainty that we will later meet again in the Kingdom of Heaven.

If more people will come to know and truly believe that message of God’s greatest gift that He offers freely to all of us, then that will be a wonderful change. That is my biggest wish for Christmas 💕

In the past seven months or so, I received many beautiful messages from current or former Maths or Chess students or colleagues, I met lots of lovely people at Chess events in Temse (Belgium), Hull (England) and Lignano Sabbiadoro (Italy), and my wife and I got to share some very precious time in Scotland with the family of Paul Fitzpatrick (1948-2024, who was a fantastic teacher, friend and mentor to me for more than half a century) ❤️

Some of Paul’s children and grand-children are extremely good at Mathematics, as are a number of my current students and colleagues at Musica Mundi School (MMS) in Waterloo, Belgium. In honour of all of them, and Paul especially, I now offer the following fresh, original brainteaser, called ‘Steps Towards Heaven’ 💕

I estimate that I may have taken about 200000000 (two hundred million) steps in my life, so far. On a nice day out yesterday with my son, Michael, we comfortably did more than 10000 steps each. So, imagine 200000000 steps numbered individually 1, 2, 3,…and so on, up to 200000000 for my newest step!

Let’s say that Paul and I look back on them together. I pick one of the numbers, and Paul then multiplies it by one of the other numbers in the long list. We will note carefully the product result that we get from the multiplication.

Next, I pick one of the 199999998 numbers that has not yet been picked, and Paul multiplies it by one of the remaining numbers. We again note the product result carefully, and we continue like that until all the numbers have finally been chosen.

Our ‘Steps Towards Heaven’ Christmas Brainteaser for you is this: Can you figure out the absolute maximum total that can be obtained by adding up the one hundred million products that Paul and I will have noted?

You are wished very fine thoughts and lots of good fun too in solving the brainteaser. Please feel free to email me your best answers. Everyone who does so will be specially named and congratulated 👍👍 here in the New Year or possibly even sooner, God-willing as always.

In the meantime, warm congratulations are given right now to Hannah Hogstad, Wout Callens and Richard Riet (excellent students at MMS) and to Jens Van Steerteghem (my dear Maths colleague at the school), who all solved nice prize puzzles &/or brainteasers that I have been sharing with everyone at the school. Hannah and Jens will be receiving beautiful medals tomorrow, and Wout & Richard will be receiving other lovely gift prizes 👍😍

With love and kindest wishes,

Paul Motwani 💕😊