How to Calculate Quickly: Full Course in Speed Arithmetic

(the art of calculation)

BY HENRY STICKER

DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

This Dover edition, first published in 1955, is an unabridged republication, with minor corrections, of the work originally published by Essential Books in 1945 under the title The Art of Calculation. It is reprinted through special arrangement with Duell, Sloan and Pearce, Inc.

Copyright

Copyright © 1945 by Essential Books.

Copyright © 1955 by Dover Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.

International Standard Book Number

ISBN-13: 978-0-486-20295-2

ISBN-10: 0-486-20295-X

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

20295X35

www.doverpublications.com

PREFACE

Arithmetic is a science, but calculation is an art. Science is knowledge—art is skill. You have all the knowledge you could possibly need to determine that 57 times 25 equals 1425, but if you are asked to multiply 57 by 25 and cannot do this mentally in just about one second, you are not adept at the art of calculation.

Genuine skill in the calculating art can be acquired by any person of ordinary intelligence, no matter what his schooling may have been. To develop such skill is the purpose of this book. Special forms of short, graded exercises, performed for the most part mentally, lead the student by easy steps to a point where he will possess really exceptional calculating ability.

For instance, if you will look at Exercise No. 371 on page 191, you will find that you are expected to perform mentally such multiplications as 696 times 858, 858 times 878, etc. These are not trick examples—the student who systematically performs the practice examples presented in this book will be able to do many kinds of examples of this degree of difficulty by his sheer ability to hold and manipulate figures in his head.

How is this skill developed? Essentially by developing number sense. Number sense consists in the ability to recognize the relations that exist between numbers considered as whole quantities, and to work with the thought of their broad relations always uppermost. Number sense is possessed by many people in all walks of life—particularly by accountants, bookkeepers, estimators, cashiers, storekeepers and the like. On the other hand, it is absent in many who have an excellent understanding of advanced mathematics. The engineering professions are full of those who require slide rules to perform calculations which the average billing clerk would do mentally.

To give an example of what is meant by number sense, suppose you were asked to multiply mentally 11625 by 12. If you felt at all competent to try to do so, you would probably (unless you are the exceptional case) proceed like this: 12 times 5 is 60, remember 0 and carry 6; 12 times 2 is 24, put 0 before the other 0 and carry 3, etc. In this way you would eventually arrive at the correct answer—if you did not get all mixed up in the meantime; but at best you would take a long time, because number sense would have played no part whatever in your awkward method of approaching this very simple little problem.

. As soon as money enters into the matter you immediately see the whole picture in a different light. If you were asked approximately how much your commissions amounted to, you would figure quick as a flash that 11 times 12 is 132, and you would probably answer instantly that you had made something over $132. If you were then asked how much or $139.50.

thousands, or 139,500.

From this illustration you may correctly infer that the person with number sense works very largely from left to right instead of from right to left. Left-to-right calculation is of the essence of number sense. Countless practical people know this, yet the art of left-to-right calculation is never taught in the schools, and is, in fact, rarely mentioned in books of any kind.

Step-by-step instruction and practice in this neglected art of left-to-right calculation constitutes the greater part of the substance of this book. Methods of this kind are applied not only to multiplication but to all the fundamental operations. By means of such methods, for instance, you learn to add two columns of figures at a time, and you even get a little practice in three-column addition. You are also taught comparable methods of subtraction and division.

In addition to the exercises having to do with left-to-right calculation, there are many that are based on an extension of the multiplication table. You are taught by easy stages to use all the numbers up to 25 as direct multipliers—that is to say, you acquire a complete knowledge of the multiplication table up to 25 times 25.

The subject of fractions is treated with special reference to the addition and subtraction of the fractions that are most commonly met with in everyday work. The object here is to enable the student to memorize the answers to the kinds of problems that are ordinarily figured out over and over again.

The exercises dealing with decimals are designed to give the student a large workable fund of knowledge of the decimal equivalents of fractions. Memory work includes twelfths and sixteenths, and there is practice in the rapid calculation of thirty-seconds and twenty-fourths.

The final broad subject developed in this book is short cuts. These are of the highest value in developing a general understanding of numbers.

The subject matter of this book is limited to the four fundamental operations, with the inclusion of fractions and decimals. No attempt is made to consider the various fields of arithmetical application. Skill in calculation pure and simple is the only goal.

The exercises, nearly four hundred in number, are for the most part very short. Few should take more than ten minutes to do, and many will take less. As progress is by graded steps, the instruction is in small doses. The book, accordingly, can be used with profit whenever you happen to have a few free minutes. Its pocket size, moreover, makes it all the more suitable for odd-moment study.

Taken as a whole, this book will prove valuable to anybody engaged in work or study that requires any considerable amount of arithmetical calculation. It is especially recommended to heads of departments in industrial and commercial organizations, for general distribution to the members of their staffs.

CONTENTS

The Plan of This Book

ADDITION

Addition in General

Adding Single Columns by Pairs, starts on

Adding Single Columns by Trios, starts on

Mental Addition of Large Numbers, starts on

Two-Column Addition, starts on

SUBTRACTION

Subtraction in General

Left-to-Right Subtraction, starts on

MULTIPLICATION

Multiplication in General

Factoring, starts on

Direct Multiplication by Numbers Greater than 12, starts on

Multiplying Three Figures by One, starts on

Multiplying Two Figures by Two, starts on

Multiplying Three Figures by Two, starts on

Multiplying Three Figures by Three, starts on

DIVISION

Division in General

Direct Division by Numbers Greater than 12, starts on

Mental Division of Large Numbers, starts on

Division by Three Figures, starts on

Division by Two Figures, starts on

FRACTIONS

Fractions in General

Addition and Subtraction of Fractions, starts on

DECIMALS

Decimals in General

Decimal Equivalents of Fractions, starts on

SHORT CUTS

Horizontal Addition

Combined Addition and Subtraction

Multiplying by a Near Number

Aliquot Parts in Multiplication

Simplifying the Multiplier

Multiplication by Factoring

Factors between 11 and 19

Multiplying by 11

Multiplying by 21, 31, 41, etc

Squares of Numbers, starts on

Multiplying When Corresponding Orders Are Alike, starts on

Multiplying a Sum by a Difference

Multiplications Involving Fractions, starts on

Aliquot Parts in Division

Cubes of Numbers

Algebraic Multiplication

Table of Prime and Composite Numbers

ANSWERS

THE PLAN OF THIS BOOK

The subject matter here presented might have been divided into sections on addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc., in the manner usual to text-books on arithmetic. Because, however, of the special purpose of this book, no such division is made. The general plan is to have several branches proceed simultaneously. Progress is not from subject to subject but from less to more difficult calculation.

For each of the fundamental divisions of arithmetic there is a general introduction—for instance, Addition in General on page 3. In these introductions the special objects sought are described, as well as the methods by which these objects are attained. The student, therefore, always has a clear view of the ultimate aims of his studies and knows how the work immediately in hand fits into the general plan.

Wherever anything new is introduced, it is clearly explained and illustrated. Usually the exercises that go with each explanation are spread through many succeeding pages. In a large number of cases the exercise calls for work with the numbers in a certain list or table (for instance, Table I on page 7). The same lists of numbers are used for various kinds of calculation. This method of presentation makes possible the remarkably great number (about 15,000) of practice examples that are included.

ADDITION IN GENERAL

Two main objects are sought. The first is to add by single columns, grouping three successive numbers at a time; the second is to add two columns at a time:

Take the following sum:

26

43

84

72

96

27

42

35

68

64

37

97

By the first method, starting at the top of the units’ column, we would add these numbers thus: (sum of the first three figures) 13 (+ sum of the next three figures, 15) 28 (+ 15) 43 (+ 18) 61; write 1 and carry 6; (6 + 14) 20 (+ 18) 38 (+ 13) 51 (+ 18) 69; total, 691.

By the second method, starting at the top, we would add both columns simultaneously thus: (26 + 43) 69 (+ 84) 153 (+ 72) 225 (+ 96) 321 (+ 27) 348 (+ 42) 390 (+ 35) 425 (+ 68) 493 (+ 64) 557 (+ 37) 594 (+ 97) 691.

In actual practice, very rapid addition is possible by either method, and you will be left free to choose whichever you prefer. You should, however, learn both.

How do you proceed to learn these methods? You were taught—or should have been taught— at school that speed in addition is acquired by combining pairs of successive numbers that add up to 10. It is at this point that we start, because this is the simplest way in which grouped numbers can be added to a preceding sum. You are given short columns of numbers to be added by incidentally selecting such pairs of successive figures as make