By now most people think that math is set in stone and there aren’t many changes. However, there are new discoveries made every day, usually by experts in the field. They develop new ways to add, subtract, and even establish new formulas. But, you don’t need to be an expert in the field with a degree to develop a new formula, which is something that 12-year-old Chika Ofili, a Nigerian child who goes to school at the Westminster Under School in London, England, proved.
In November 2019, Chika was awarded the TruLittle Hero Awards for his discovery of the new formula for divisibility by seven in mathematics. He received the book First Steps for Problem Solvers, from his teacher during a holiday break. Chika noticed that while the book had several divisibility tests, it didn’t have a memorable test with a number divisible
by 7, so he went to work creating a formula and found proof to back it up.
The new formula that he came up with involves taking the last digit of any whole number and multiplying it by 5. Then, you need to add it to the remaining part of the number to get a new number. You’ll know the original number is divisible by 7 if the new number is divisible by 7.
Sources:
https://www.africanexponent.com/post/4511-12-year-old-nigerian-boy-makes-new-mathematical-discovery
https://face2faceafrica.com/article/this-12-year-old-nigerian-just-made-a-new-discovery-in-mathematics?fbclid=IwAR3uWgvSDqeCiqAsuVoJBhFTuPpMa5HlY0nKKBBPYiALA37nbp1CTu6FdHU
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