MIND GAMES
Turn the table
Aditya Rishi

FIVE times today I have been asked: "Is there magic in mathematics?" The answer here is very simple: "You be the judge." "Right, I be the judge; so where’s my court?" "The courts are all closed for now after the Australian Open, but will reopen before the next Grand Slam event." "I can’t wait that long for magic to happen."

"The snooker room is open; we can go there if you like." "What are the odds of magic happening at the snooker table?" "I’d say 1 in 10 million." "How very disappointing!" "You misjudge, it’s actually never been better." "One in 10 million and yet you are so sure that something will happen there tonight! What if you lose?" "Then you win." "I’ve never lost." "I’ve never won. That’s the difference that sums up everything." "C’mon, give yourself a chance." "For that, you’ll have to come with me to the snooker room."

"I’ve never played snooker before." "It’s actually very simple, much like carom, except that instead of the crowns, you have to pot clay balls. You have a long cue stick with which you hit the white cue ball, which is the striker in snooker. There are quite a few red balls in the centre and then there are six "coloured" balls—yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black. The objective is to pot a coloured ball and cover it with a red ball. A potted coloured ball always returns to the centre as long as at least one red ball remains in the middle. Then the coloured balls are all potted in a sequence. The potted red balls are not replaced."

"How do you score?" "Each red ball is worth one point, but singles alone can’t win you the match, so you can score two, three, four, five, six and even seven runs on one ball. A yellow ball will get you two points, green 3, brown 4, blue 5, pink 6 and black seven."

"Interesting, but I don’t see any magic coming, and we were to look for magic in mathematics, not snooker. What’s the relation between snooker and mathematics?" "Well, in snooker, the coloured balls all add up to 27: 2+3+4+5+6+7=27. What’s the relation between this number and pi?" "Pi?" "You know, the number that begins with 3.141`85 and goes on and on." "It’s`85 er`85 em`85 let’s see`85 3.141`85 and so on`85"

"Leave it. The number 27 is at the 27^th position in pi, i.e. if you remove the first 27 digits, the remaining would begin with 27. The odds of this happening are 1 in 10 million, as there are only 5 such numbers in the first 50 million that appear in pi at the position these represent." "That’s magical indeed!" "You haven’t seen more yet. The number 27 in pi is surrounded by 3 and 9, the numbers of which it is a product." "I guess I lose then." "And I win." "What are the odds of that happening?" "Five in 50 million, which reminds me for the fifth time: we talked of 5 such numbers in the first 50 million (barring the number 1); what are the other four?" "What if I win?" "Write at The Tribune or adityarishi99@yahoo.co.in."