Mental Math at Its Finest
You know something really funny?
Earlier, Aaron was doing a moderately simple multiplication problem, and he decided that doing it in his head would take too long. So, while he went to get his calculator, I did it in my head, and he called me a blackguard for showing him up. (Which was moderately fun, I must admit, but it was in fun.) So, afterwards, we both went to class, and when we were coming back from that class, he told me that he had done it in his head on the way to class, and explained why he didn't feel like doing it in his head then.
So, just a minute ago, he called over to me, with a sort of sarcastic expression in his voice, "Okay, Smurf, take the arc tangent of (-0.529/0.706)."
Well, naturally, I didn't remember the numbers from just that one telling of them, so I asked him what they were again twice. And he answered. Then, I thought about it for a moment, and called back, "37 degrees", then, remembering it was negative, said, "No, wait, negative 37 degrees.
"You blackguard."
The answer had been 36.843.
I think that I get a few points of winnage for this victory, wouldn't you?