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When you think about it, math should be incredibly engaging. We’re talking about the laws of reality here. Like, what if 5 + 5 did NOT equal 10? What if it just didn’t?

Ok, ok. Students tend to ponder such mind-blowing thoughts during other, um, recreational activities. Well, one thing that even a terrible math student like myself never forgot was the perfect pattern that the nine multiplication tables always followed.

Listverse.com explains: “hold both hands in front of your face – drop the finger that corresponds to the number you are multiplying (for example 9×3 – drop your third finger) – count the fingers before the dropped finger (in the case of 9×3 it is 2) then count the numbers after (in this case 7) – the answer is 27.”

Now everyone with an ounce of wonderment in them has to admit that on top of being useful, that’s just a cool thing. Listverse.com breaks down nine other math “tricks” (whoa…nine again…) Most of them are more complicated than this one, like a trick for multiplying big numbers by 11, or finding the square root of any number ending in 5.

It’s the little phenomena like these that excite the less math-savvy imagination. Check it out and remember to relish saying those four little words: “It works every time.” –PATRICK O’BOYLE

10 Easy Arithmetic Tricks