[edit] Estimation The best way to make estimation quickly in mental math is to round to one or two significant digits

(that is, round it to the nearest place of the highest order(s) of magnitude), and then proceed with typical operations. Thus, 1242 * 15645 is approximately equal to 1200 * 16000 = 19200000, which is reasonably close to the correct answer of 19431090. In certain cases, one can even round to simply the nearest power of ten (which is useful when making estimations with much error and large numbers). [edit] Range Search It is sometimes easier to make a calculation in the opposite direction from the one you want, and this can be used to quickly estimate the value you want. Square root is a good example. It is easier to square numbers than to take the square root. So you take any number that will square to a little larger than the one you want, take another that squares to less than the one you want and use an average of the two. The trick now is to apply a general technique ( the Bisection Method ). We create a new estimate using the average of our first two numbers. Square this. If it's value is higher than we want, we use it as the upper value of our range. If it is lower than we want, we use it as the lower value of our range. We now have a new range that must contain the square root we want. We can apply the same process again to get a more accurate value ( this is known as Iteration ). This technique is widely applied in computing, but also very handy for some mental mathematics. [edit] Other mental maths Perhaps one of the more useful tricks to mental math is memorization. Although it may seem an annoyance to need to memorize certain math facts, such as perfect squares and cubes (especially powers of two), prime factorizations of certain numbers, or the decimal equivalents of common fractions (such as 1/7 = .1428...). Many are simple, such as 1/3 = .3333... and 2^5 = 32, but speed up your calculations enormously when you don't have to do the division or multiplication in your head. For example, trying to figure out 1024/32 is much easier knowing that that is the same as 2^10/2^5, or which, subtracting exponents, gives 2^5, or 32. Many of these are memorized simply by frequent use; so, the best way to get good is much practice. It's a good idea to memorize 3 x 17 = 51. We can extend this to 6 x 17 = 102. If we round these numbers 3 x 17 is approx 50, 6 x 17 is approx 100, 9 x 17 is approx 150, and so on. These are very helpful in estimating since 3, 6, 9, 50, 100 ... are common numbers. [edit] Mental Math Olympiads (MEMORIADTM) MEMORIAD (MEMORy olympIAD)TM (www.MEMORIAD.com) is the short form of World Mental Math, Memory & Photographic Speed Reading Championships. Memoriad games and competitions are held in the Olympic games order once every four years. The venue for Memoriad-2008 was Istanbul, Turkey. [edit] Advanced Mathematics It is possible to make good estimates of quite complex formulae. Range search is a useful technique and in addition to this you can also exploit some additional mathematical rules. [edit] Binomial Expansion The Binomial Theory means we can relatively easily expand an equation like

This is very useful if is less than 1. In that case the powers of get smaller and smaller, and we can ignore them.

Even for whole numbers and Integers, this is useful as we can split the problem into a large and small number added and then raised to a power. The small number's powers will become less important and we can neglect terms of the expansion than involve them to get a reasonable estimate. So :

If the value of value is much smaller than the we can make a good estimate, even if we don't add the , or terms.

[edit] Compound Interest The Binomial Theorem again comes to our help. Here we usually want to work out :

where is the rate of interest (e.g. rate is 5% then Using the theory we can roughly estimate this as

) and is the period.

Although this is only a simple approximation it works quite well for small x.

to find the squares of two and three digit no i have an easy method follow 87*87 (100-87)=(13)13*13=169 87-13=74 74 +169 -7569 what about this When you multiply two numbers in the 90's together, in parenthesis next to each number put how far that number is away from 100. Since 92 is 8 away from 100 and 94 is 6 away from 100, the problem 92 94 would look like this: 92(8) x 94(6) Example: 93(7) x 96(4) Step 1: Add up the numbers in parenthesis 7 + 4 = 11 and subtract that number from 100. 100 - 11 = 89 Step 2: Multiply the two numbers in parenthesis together and tack that on to the number from Step 1. 7 4 = 28 Answer: 93 96 = 8928 83 x 87 1) find out 100 - 83=17 2) find 100 - 87=13 3) multiply 17 and 13 which gives 221 Thus you have got units place 4) But here we have taken base as 100 which has two 0's so we will take 2 from 221 as carry over 5) either subtract 83 - 13 or 87 - 7=80 + carry over(2) =82 So we have got the final answer 8221. hav a trik which is very simple for such kind of problems..look 89*99= 89 is far frm 100 =11 99 is far frm 100=1 11*1=11put on right sideof ur answer 89-1=88 or 99-11=88 so put 88 on left side of ur answer..and u will get..the ans.. 8811