The Finger Tables

This is a great way of multiplying any two numbers between 6 and 10.

If you've ever seen "Mr Numbervator" on the tv or performing live, you'll know that this is one of his favourite tricks! This method is also known as "Indian Multiplication"

First you need to imagine your fingers on each hand are numbered like this:

Now suppose you want to multiply 8 x 9, you touch together the 8 finger from one hand and the 9 finger of the other hand.

You work out the "tens" and "units" separately:

• To get the "tens" you count up the fingers that are touching and all the fingers underneath. Here you'll see there are 7 fingers that count altogether, so that gives us 7 tens or 70.
• To get the "units" you look at the fingers on each hand above the two touching fingers, and multiply these numbers together. Here you'll see 2 fingers on one hand and one finger on the other, so you get 2x1= 2 units
• That gives us a final answer of 70 + 2 = 72.

It works! Because 8 x 9 DOES make 72!

Let's try 7 x 6

• To get the "tens" we see there are 3 fingers that count altogether, so that gives us 30.
• To get the "units" we see there are 3 fingers on one hand that count and 4 fingers on the other. We get 3x4= 12 units
• Our answer is 30 + 12 = 42.

Check it - and you'll find that 7 x 6 DOES make 42!

Try this out with other numbers on the tables. It's brilliant!

Multiplying Bigger Numbers

If you want to know how to multiply numbers from 11-15 or 16-20 just using your fingers, it's all explained in the NUMBERS book.

To The Essential Arithmetricks

To NUMBERS - the key to the universe

Murderous Maths Main Index Page