Blog Post #101: Super Sigurd advances from 10 to 11 !

Dear Friends,

All the posts are free for everyone to enjoy, and today’s one is specially dedicated to Super Sigurd, the youngest of three children in a lovely Norwegian family with whom I often had the pleasure of doing fun Maths and Chess.

Happy memories with dear friends four years ago

Sigurd is turning 11 today, and so we have lots of nice, sneaky surprises…!

It’s Wednesday, and W is the 23rd letter of the English alphabet. So, let’s start with the number 23.

Multiply by 19, because S (for Super Sigurd!) is the 19th letter of the alphabet.

Multiply by my favourite number, 3.

To crown this surprise, multiply by 11, Sigurd’s new age.

The result of 14421 is to wish Sigurd an unforgettable, happy birthday on 14.4.21=today !

Also, 14421 ÷ 11 = 1311,

like saying to Sigurd, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY (13 letters), 11 !”

Furthermore, it’s fun to note that, by changing just one digit, we have two ways of turning 1311 into a pretty palindrome…

Either change it to 1331, which equals 11 x 11 x 11

OR change it to 1111, which equals this blog post number times Sigurd’s new age: 101 x 11 = 1111.

It’s time now for Sigurd’s birthday chess puzzle…

Where exactly is White’s invisible queen if it’s White to play and force checkmate in two moves!?

Before revealing the chess solution, here’s a simple-looking yet rather enjoyable wee ‘word sum’ to increase the fun today…!

In ONE + ONE = TWO, each different letter stands for a different digit and each same letter stands for the same digit. The general digit options are 0-9, but neither O nor T can be 0 because ONE and TWO stand for proper three-digit numbers.

Your double fun challenge is to figure out the minimum possible value of ONE + ONE and also the maximum possible value of ONE + ONE if it equals TWO !

That’s a beautiful one + one for Sigurd’s 11th birthday, and yet it’s just a tiny illustration showing that, in Maths and everything created by God, there’s a limitless universe of surprises infinitely beyond our imagination still waiting to delight us for eternity in Heaven.

Write *any* whole number you want. The ‘sky’s the limit’ to how big it can be! Just when you think you’re finished writing it, on the right-hand end, start writing it all again in reverse order! For Super Sigurd’s 11th birthday, your final number will be an exact multiple of 11 ! For example, Sigurd’s big sister and brother have their birthdays in the 11th month (November) on day 15 and 22 respectively. 1551 ÷ 11 = 141 exactly, a nice number from pmotwani141@gmail.com ! 2222 ÷ 11 = 202, which is exactly double the number of this Blog Post 101 !

Sigurd’s Birthday Chess Puzzle Solution

With the ‘invisible queen’ now visible on f7, White can use the g5-pawn to capture Black’s knight with 1 gxh6, and there’s simply no way to prevent checkmate coming on White’s very next move!

Sigurd’s ONE + ONE = TWO Sneaky Birthday Maths Brainteaser Solution

In this TWO-story,

the minimum possible value of ONE + ONE is 412

and

the maximum possible value of ONE + ONE is 964.

Very warm congratulations for finding either or both of those values.

To conclude this article, I would like to wish Sigurd and everyone a really wonderful, happy day now.

With kindest wishes as always,

Paul M☺twani xxx

P.S. Even when he was a grade 1 primary school student several years ago, young Sigurd already loved to do great mental calculations, and he understood mathematical concepts such as squaring, with 12² = 144 being one of his favourite examples, not only on 14/4 ! So, as an extra birthday treat, we have the following b☺nus brainteaser f☺r Sigurd…