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Magic with math
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Art Benjamin, a “mathemagician,” performs magic with math for students Wednesday in the Chestnut Room of Youngstown State University’s Kilcawley Center.
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
Art Benjamin performs math magic, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing faster than most people can complete the equations on their calculators.
The mathemagician, an Ohio native and math professor at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif., entertained students and math enthusiasts Wednesday in Kilcawley Center’s Chestnut Room at Youngstown State University.
“He does amazing things with math, and he’s going to share with you the amazing things that you can do with math,” said Martin Abraham, dean of the College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
“I combine my love of math and magic,” Benjamin said.
For his first trick, Benjamin selected calculator-packing members of the audience to go up against.
He asked other audience members to give him two-, three- and four-digit numbers, asking his competitors to calculate the square of those numbers on their devices while he figured it in his head.
Benjamin was faster each time.
Next, he asked a student for her birth date — July 6, 1992. The sum of those digits (7/6/92) equals 24. Benjamin drew a magic square with four rows and four columns, filling in each block with a number. All of the lines and rows, as well as diagonals and boxes within the square, added up to 24.
“How many of you know the day of the week you were born on?”
Several raised their hands.
When they provided the date, Benjamin correctly provided the day of the week.
How does he do it?
“The short answer is, it’s mathematical,” Benjamin said.
He explained how he did it, but the explanation still left many in the audience dumbfounded.
He’s appeared on television and radio programs including “The Colbert Report” and “The Today Show” and been profiled in publications including The New York Times, USA Today and Wired.