- #1
pinkshoegirl
- 3
- 0
Hello all, I feel a bit out of my league here :) if I've posted in the wrong section I'm so sorry...
I am looking for help finding an equation or formula. When I was in school years ago (before internet and search engines) one of the lessons in geometry was drawing a certain number of dots in a circle, then connecting the dots with all possible lines to get a number. On tests, this is how we were taught to get the answer. Draw the dots and connect them! I was in love with numbers, and figured there HAD to be a better way. I remember hiding away in my bedroom and after a little while and some scribbled paper I came up with a simple formula to get the number of lines.
I brought this up in class that Monday morning, and my teacher was amazed. She drew example after example on the chalkboard, and asked me what the highest number I tested it out on was. Which I believe was 20-something. She then gathered the other math teachers at the high school and they spent days pouring through books and updating the class on their progess. Then one day she simply told us they found the formula and mine was just a simplified version of it. I was crushed!
Since the birth of the internet, I figured I'd search for this formula she had never shown me to learn more about when it was created and see the "unsimplified" version. I have come up with nothing. Since my job (sadly) is not math related, and I don't have any idea how to find this or what it would even be called to search for, I thought I'd seek help here. If anyone reading my post is knowledgeable in this - I would love to hear from you!
Kindly,
Kim
I am looking for help finding an equation or formula. When I was in school years ago (before internet and search engines) one of the lessons in geometry was drawing a certain number of dots in a circle, then connecting the dots with all possible lines to get a number. On tests, this is how we were taught to get the answer. Draw the dots and connect them! I was in love with numbers, and figured there HAD to be a better way. I remember hiding away in my bedroom and after a little while and some scribbled paper I came up with a simple formula to get the number of lines.
I brought this up in class that Monday morning, and my teacher was amazed. She drew example after example on the chalkboard, and asked me what the highest number I tested it out on was. Which I believe was 20-something. She then gathered the other math teachers at the high school and they spent days pouring through books and updating the class on their progess. Then one day she simply told us they found the formula and mine was just a simplified version of it. I was crushed!
Since the birth of the internet, I figured I'd search for this formula she had never shown me to learn more about when it was created and see the "unsimplified" version. I have come up with nothing. Since my job (sadly) is not math related, and I don't have any idea how to find this or what it would even be called to search for, I thought I'd seek help here. If anyone reading my post is knowledgeable in this - I would love to hear from you!
Kindly,
Kim