ODDITIES OF NUMBER NINE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1704, 26 April 1917, Page 1

ODDITIES OF NUMBER NINE.

ITS QUAINT TRICKS AND POWERS. There lire some curious facts and fancies connected with numbers. The number 9 is, perhaps, the first as regards such experiments, although number 7 is more prominent in literature and history. When you once use it you can't get rid of it. It will turn up a£ain, no matter what you do to put it “down and out.” All through the multiplication table the product, of 9 comes to‘9. No matter what you multiply with or how many times you repeat or change the figures, the result is always the same. For instance, twice 9 equals IS; add 8 and 1, and you have 9. Three times 9 are 27; 2 and 7 make 9 again. Go on until you try eleven times 9 —99. This seems to bring an exception. But add the digits —9 and 9 make 18; and again 1 and 8 make 9. Go on to an indeterminable extent, ami the thing continues. Take any number at random. For example 450 times 9 equals 4,050, and the digits, added, make 9 once more. Take 6,000 times 9, equals 54,000, and again you have 5 and 4. Take any row of figures, reverse the order, and subtract the less from the greater —the total will certainly be always !) or the multiple of 9. For example, take 5,071 —1705 plus 3,3(}(>. Add these digits, and yon have 18, and 1 and 8 make the familial' 9. You have the same result, no matter how you raise the numbers by squares and cubes. One more way is given by which number !) shows its strange powers. Write down any number you please, add its digits, and (hen subtract the sum of said digets from the original number. No matter what numbers you started with, the sum of the digits in (he answer will be 9. Try these experiments, and you will be delighted with the exact manner in which they prove the statement. Some quaint puzzles have been made based on these fixed principles.