>
> Yeah, it does. ;-) Actually, I have sticky
> numbers too. Normally there's not much
>thinking
> about the sticking, they're just there. I
>guess
> if you do the calculations fast enough it's
> easier to hold it there.

Anything I try to hold in my head goes away as soon as I stop "looking" at it. I have a horrible time doing multiplication in my head when I have to carry numbers. Because that number that I'm carrying is floating there above the problem. But if I take my eyes off it to do the next multiplication bit, it flies away. Similarly, when I do the first multiplication and get the first digit, if I'm not continuously flitting my internal gaze back to that number while doing the rest of the problem, I'll lose it.

For example, the problem I gave earlier, 24x7. I do the 7x4 first, and get 28. Put down 8, carry the two. Now comes the insanely hard part. I have to flit my mental gaze back and forth between the 8 and the 2, or else I'll lose one or both of them. If I look up at the two for too long while doing (7x2)+2, I lose the 8, and end up with 16?. Sometimes what I then do is pin the 16 with my gaze while I *redo* 7x4 to figure out what the digit I lost was. Then I can get the whole number, 168. It's *insanely* frustrating. It literally hurts my head sometimes doing math this way. But I can't seem to do it any other way!

The worst part of this is that those of you who have no idea what I'm saying or think I'm crazy are *never* going to understand what I'm talking about. You haven't a clue what it's like to *have* to do math my way, any more than I know what it's like to be able to do math without visualizing the actual numbers in my damn head. :-(


>
> Wes - "When I was in kindergarden I would ask
> my parents to give me numbers and I would
> multiply them to impress their friends. I
> think 23*23 was as high as I got before 2nd
> grade though."

When I was in kindergarten, I was playing in the sandbox and blowing milk out my nose at lunch. *sigh*.

-- Dave