Weird or what?

[Furball]

Right my lovelies try this and have a go, it gets it right every time - Help I'm scared!!!!!!

I'm not wrong - it's a mathmatical fact. I am sad enough to remember these things from school. Your answer will always always always be divisible by 9, (eg 32-(3+2)=27 which is 3*9) and all the numbers divisible by 9 have the same symbol.

And I am anally retentive enough to get into an argument about arcane mathmatical tricks - and yes I do know how sad that makes me

Just checked again (sorry, getting a bit obsessed) and, yes Prufrock, can see exactly why you're right now (which I know you know anyway )

Oh yes but validation is sooooo good

Just count to every 9th symbol to see that Prufrock is right. I did it 9 times and it worked every time - my mental arithmatic isn't as bad as I thought considering I thought I'd never got rid of my baby/sponge brain.

awww i thought it was magic you spoilsports!

My daughter came up with the same explanation as musica and prufrock ( I didn't let her read the thread, just gave her the puzzle and asked her why!)

She did her Maths A level yesterday, a year early, thought it was a bit of fun, the puzzle, not the A level!

Ok, that is as may be but how does it KNOW which symbol you want to see ? You don't have to enter the numbers anywhere on the screen so there is no way of it knowing. The ball shows a series of different symbols and yet it throws up the correct symbol each time- how can this be ???

Confused, Worcester

Because whichever number you will pick, when added together and original number subtracted will always give you a multiple of 9. All the multiples of 9 have the same symbol. Just did it on Excel to check!

Hi there, I've been testing this theory and have just realised that every time you click on the ball the symbols next to the numbers move around. So the the symbol for 45 is different each time you click the ball.

So each symbol beside a '9' number changes to match up with the symbol in the ball. Hey Presto you get the same result every time but the symbol is different, thus creating 'Oohhh' reaction.

HURRAH, Have cracked it !!!