SPECIAL AUDIO ANNOUNCEMENT

 Is that the unmistakeable thunder of galloping horses? Looks like it might be. 

I'm interrupting this blog count down (or rather count up) with the special announcement that Horse of a Different Colour is now available as an audiobook. 

CLICK HERE

Week 11 of the count up

11

Week 11 of the count up, and time to take stock. 

All the new cast is now embedded in the book, that includes Solo, Fmelodie, Tristan and Starlight Piglet, but Megan and Amy haven't properly met them all. At least not - as Amy would say - been introduced in a 'pleased to meet you' kind of way. In fact, Megan isn't quite sure she wants to meet Tristan properly. She has a feeling they've already met and that she didn't do well out of the encounter.

I’m not planning to get to week 1000, but I have a neat 1000 fact so I’ll put it here. It’s about the letter ‘a’. Although not as common as ‘e’, it is the second commonest vowel in the English language. Yet how many times would it appear if you were to write out the numbers from 0 to 1000?

Answer (surprisingly): just once. 

It is still a countUP but before too long it'll be a countDOWN,

Why is this a countUP and not acountDOWN.

Week 10 of the count up

10

We’re now in week 10 of the count up. Do you remember that back in week 6 I said that there was a connection to the number 10? It is that 10 factorial (usually written 10! And meaning 10*9*8*7*6*5*4*3*2*1) equals the exact number of seconds in 6 weeks.

 

Why is this a countUP and not acountDOWN.

Week 9 of the count up

 9

Nine is an interesting number to multiply. If you add together the digits of the answer, you always end up back with 9.

2 * 9 = 18

Add together 1 and 8 et voila! 9

Or really go mad and try something bigger:

56 * 9 = 504

5+0+4 = 9

And even where you don’t immediately get back to 9, then add together the numbers of the answer until you get back to a single digit and it will always be 9.

55 * 9 = 495

4+9+5 = 18

1+8 = 9.

 

For an explanation of why this is a countUP and not a countDOWN, CLICKHERE for the New Year post

Week 8 of the count up

8

This week I’m using the fact that 4 + 4 = 8.

Pick any 4-digit number (it must contain at least 2 different digits, so it could be 4985, or 5583 etc but not 5555)

1.     Write the digits in ascending order e.g. 4985 would become 4589

2.     Now write the digits in descending order e.g. 4985 would become 9854

3.     Now subtract the smaller number from the larger e.g. 9854 minus 4589 equals 5265

Now start again at 1 with this new number, and eventually you will end up with 6174, no matter where you start. The number 6174 is known as Kaprekar’s constant. 

 

For an explanation of why this is a countUP and not a countDOWN, CLICKHERE for the New Year post

Week 7 of the count up

7

Seven is a number that crops up all over the place: 7 dwarves, 7 days in the week, 7 wonders of the world etc. It is also popular as a ‘favourite number’ and has come top in favourite number polls.

For an explanation of why this is a countUP and not a countDOWN, CLICKHERE for the New Year post

Interrupting the count up with an audio announcement

Horse of a Different Colour is due out as an audiobook any day now. Watch this space! But as for Horse of the Same Colour, this is week 6 of the count up and things are going well.

6

The number 6, because it denotes 6 weeks, has an interesting connection to the number 10 – check out week 10 for more. If I was counting up in days, this connection wouldn’t work.

 

For an explanation of why this is a countUP and not a countDOWN, CLICKHERE for the New Year post