An Age of Magic

Getting the swing of it

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

A few years back I decided to cut back on my working hours and enjoy some leisure time for the first time in years. One of the ideas I had for my new founded spare time was to join that hardy band of people who play golf. They certainly are a hardy bunch, you see them out on the golf course in all weather braving the elements. It also looked relaxing and a bit of a challenge so I signed up for some lessons.

It became apparent very soon that getting that tiny ball into the hole comes as no fluke and requires real skill. ” It’s all in the swing ” stated my golfing tutor. Well, I could certainly ’swing’ alright but getting the club to meet with the ball was an entirely different matter. At first it didn’t. Of course, golf is an acquired skill, and a worthwhile one at that, but in order to improve my golf club swing I needed to spend a lot of time practising. Watching the pro’s at the game also helps but nothing beats getting out on that range and actually doing it.

I’m back to not having alot of spare time once again but when I do I’ll be heading straight back to the golf course; I’m not going to let it beat me !.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Could you do this on your fingers?.

Are you a whizz at mathematics?.  How about this; you have to work out the answer to a mathematical problem and the correct answer is: 2, 407, 899, 893, o32, 210…whatever the question is it just has to be a whopper. And not only that, but you have to work it out without the help of a calculator, a mechanical one that is, you have to use the ‘calculator’ that god gave you.

A Frenchman, Alexis Lemaire, had to work out the 13th root of a computer generated 200-digit number; to make it even easier it had a possibility of 393 TRILLION answers. Whilst many of us, myself included at times, still use the ten finger abacus to add up, this guy didn’t even need a paper and pencil. He used his brain and would you believe he solved the problem in 70.2 seconds later!. I wouldn’t have solved it 70 YEARS later!.

Those of us who use a crossword to stretch the brain matter and keep it active might be interested to know that guys like Mr Lemaire exercise their brains by working out problems using the 13th root. Highly impressive. But I don’t think I’ll bother challenging him to a duel.

Popularity: 23% [?]