News and Resources for Competitive and Advanced Mental Calculation
Daniel Timms *** Update: Results! *** In advance of the 2022 Mental Calculation World Cup, to be held in Paderborn (Germany) this July, the organizer (Ralf Laue) has released the list of participants. This year the competition will include many experienced calculators from the last decade, from every continent except Oceania, and with a wide range of … Read more
*** Update: Results! *** Registration is now open for the Mental Calculation World Cup 2022! (Organized by Ralf Laue) The event will be held on the 15th – 17th July 2022. This year it will be held in Paderborn (Germany) at the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum. This is the same venue that the 2020 competition was … Read more
Every year, there are opportunities to compete at mental maths. Even the international events are accessible to people of all ages, if you have a good foundation and prepare well! So far for this year, there are expected to be 2–3 events. It is still too early to announce anything yet, shh! But details will … Read more
First of all, some good news! 🎉 At least two in-person international mental calculation competitions are being planned for later in 2022. Details will be announced here (and by email to all subcribers) and by the respective organizations as soon as they are available. In the meantime, the Canadian Mind Sports Association is (again) … Read more
Note: this page was updated on 30th August with results from the Grand Final. Semi Final The main round of the Mental Calculations World Championship, hosted by the Mind Sports Olympiad (official website), was held on Sunday 22nd August. Out of 90 entrants, 32 were qualified to this semi-final, representing India, the UK, Germany, Spain and … Read more
Note: This page was updated August 22nd with new details for the MSO Championship. It’s been a quiet few months in the world of mental calculation in most of the world, but it’s time for a few new updates! Mind Sports Olympiad It is now confirmed that the Mind Sports Olympiad will once again host … Read more
Students who are training in mental calculation often ask me how it’s possible to perform accurate divisions by long numbers, such as: 450 Ă· 34.1826 My preferred method is cross-division, which involves repeated division by a 2-digit number (in this case, by 34) followed by some simple subtractions. The method is fairly straightforward (after some practice), … Read more
As of the beginning of March, there are no international-level mental calculation events planned for 2021 (although hopefully it will be possible for one to be arranged later this year!) In the meantime, the Canadian Mind Sports Association hosted an online calculation competition/challenge that is open to everyone around the world. Update: as the competition … Read more
For today’s interview we visit the Netherlands to talk to Willem Bouman, a human calculator with more than 7 decades of experience with numbers! We first met in the 2012 World Cup in GieĂźen, and more recently while teaching at the Junior Mental Calculation World Cup in Bielefeld. At age 81, he is still active … Read more
When studying mental math in the classroom, or training for mental calculation competitions, the focus is usually on writing the answers to written questions. But in everyday life we encounter situations where the numbers to calculate are spoken to us, or generated in our head—this is verbal mental math or verbal mental arithmetic. Typical Situations Requiring … Read more