THE GYPSY METHOD OF MULTIPLYING

You can use it only for numbers from 6 to 10, But the multiplication tables of these
numbers are more difficult than those from 2 to 5.
Number the fingers on both hands from 6 to 10. You can do this with a ball-point
pen. Now place your palms together but not touching.

Example: To multiply 8 by 9

Put the tip of the finger marked 8 of one hand to touch the tip of the
finger marked 9 on the other hand
Count the fingers and thumbs from your thumbs up to and including
the two fingers that are touching 7. This is the number of tens 70.
Count the remaining fingers on one hand and multiply it by the number
of remaining fingers on the other two fingers left on one hand and one
on the other: 2 x 1 = 2. These are the units.
Put the tens and units together to get the correct answer, 72.

It may seem a bit confusing and you'll need a lot of practise but it can really work
and then lasts forever. It's a useful way of checking those awkward tables above 5
times, that seem to give the most trouble.

Multiplying by nine
Here is a simple way to multiply by nine using your fingers.

Hold both your hands up with palms facing you.

Number the fingers from left to right as one to ten.

Now hold down the finger of the number you want to

multiply by nine. In this example, we are going to
multiply by eight, so the eighth finger is held down.
The fingers to the left as the tens and the fingers to
the right are units. In this example, there are seven
fingers to the left (marked blue) and two to the right
(marked red) which makes 72.

Multiplying by six, seven, eight or nine

Here is a way to multiply by six, seven, eight or nine using your fingers. It
doesn't cover multiplying by one to five only 6x6 to 9x9. It is not as simple as
the previous method, and to tell the truth, it might just be easier learning
your times tables, but it does work. It is said to be widely used in medieval
Europe
Hold your hands with palms facing you and fingers
towards each other. Number the fingers on each
hand from bottom to top as six to nine. (The thumb
could be ten, but it's easy to multiply by ten, so
don't bother!)
Now touch the two fingers of the numbers that you
want to multiply. You may need to twist your hand
slightly to do this. This example is multiplying eight
by seven, so the finger number 8 touches the
finger number 7 on the other hand.

Now for the calculation. First you add the fingers

below and including the touching ones. These are
the tens. Here there are five of them, three on one
hand and two on the other (marked blue), so that
makes 5x10 = 50.
Then you multiply the fingers on the left hand
above the touching ones with the fingers on the
right hand above the touching ones. These are the
units. Here there are two fingers on the left
(marked red), and three fingers on the right
(marked green), so that makes 2x3 = 6. Add this to
the 50 you've already got, and that makes 56.
I have separated the tens and units in this technique, but if you try to multiply
6x6, you find that the tens figure is 2x10=20, and the units figure is 4x4=16.
Added together, this makes 36, which is correct. Perhaps we can think of the
16 as being a 'carry'.
This technique looks a bit like magic, so here is a proof that it does work. If
you don't know algebra, then you won't understand this, so just ignore it. You
don't need it to use the technique.
We are trying to multiply two numbers. Let us call them a and b. We touch
together two fingers. On the left hand, there are 10-a fingers above the
touching ones, and10-b fingers on the right hand. We multiply these together
to get the units:
(10 - a) (10 - b) = 100 -10a - 10b + ab
On the left hand, there are a-5 fingers below and including the touching ones,
and b-5 fingers on the right hand. These are added and multiplied by ten:
10 x ((a - 5) + (b - 5)) = 10 x (a + b - 10) = 10a + 10b - 100
Add these both together:
100 -10a - 10b + ab + 10a + 10b - 100 = ab
So the answer is ab or a times b which is what we wanted.