Mental Calculation

Mental calculation comprises arithmetical calculations using only the human brain, with no help from calculators, computers, or pen and paper. People use mental calculation when computing tools are not available, when it is faster than other means of calculation (for example, conventional methods as taught in educational institutions), or in a competitive context. Mental calculation often involves the use of specific techniques devised for specific types of problems.

Many of these techniques take advantage of or rely on the decimal numeral system. Usually, the choice of radix determines what methods to use and also which calculations are easier to perform mentally. For example, multiplying or dividing by ten is an easy task when working in decimal (just move the decimal point), whereas multiplying or dividing by sixteen is not; however, the opposite is true when working in hexadecimal.

After applying an arithmetic operation to two operands and getting a result, you can use this procedure to improve your confidence that the result is correct.

Example

You can use the same procedure with multiple operations just repeat steps 1 and 2 for each operation.

While checking the mental calculation, it is useful to think of it in terms of scaling. For example, when dealing with large numbers, say 1531 × 19625, estimation instructs you to be aware of the number of digits expected for the final value. A useful way of checking is to estimate. 1531 is around 1500, and 19625 is around 20000, so a result of around 20000 × 1500 (30000000) would be a good estimate for the actual answer (30045875). So if the answer has too many digits, you know you've made a mistake.

When multiplying, a useful thing to remember is that the factors of the operands still remain. For example, to say that 14 × 15 was 211 would be unreasonable. Since 15 is a multiple of 5, the product should be as well. Likewise, 14 is a multiple of 2, so the product should be even. Furthermore, any number which is a multiple of both 5 and 2 is necessarily a multiple of 10, and in the decimal system would end with a 0. The correct answer is 210. It is a multiple of 10, 7 (the other prime factor of 14) and 3 (the other prime factor of 15).

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