I used to be the network administrator of a primary school (grades 1-10). I was called to the computer room one day to help a student with a problem he was having with his computer. After I had fixed the problem I went to the teacher’s desk to see if there was anything else she would like me to do. She was helping a student with a problem she couldn’t figure out. The program they were using posed various problems, and this one was a “fill in the missing number” type of problem. The problem was “1-8-27-64-125-???” What’s the next number? As I walked up to the teacher’s desk, the teacher was saying "All these numbers are powers of three. 1×1×1 is 1, 2×2×2 is 8, 3×3×3 is 27, and so on. By the time she had gotten that far, I said “two hundred sixteen.” The teacher told me to be quiet while she was helping this girl. She then said “All you have to do is take your calculator and enter (she took her calculator) 6×6×6= …” When she saw the answer, she paused, then looked up at me and said “Did you figure that out in your head?”
I used to be the network administrator of a primary school (grades 1-10). I was called to the computer room one day to help a student with a problem he was having with his computer. After I had fixed the problem I went to the teacher’s desk to see if there was anything else she would like me to do. She was helping a student with a problem she couldn’t figure out. The program they were using posed various problems, and this one was a “fill in the missing number” type of problem. The problem was “1-8-27-64-125-???” What’s the next number? As I walked up to the teacher’s desk, the teacher was saying "All these numbers are powers of three. 1×1×1 is 1, 2×2×2 is 8, 3×3×3 is 27, and so on. By the time she had gotten that far, I said “two hundred sixteen.” The teacher told me to be quiet while she was helping this girl. She then said “All you have to do is take your calculator and enter (she took her calculator) 6×6×6= …” When she saw the answer, she paused, then looked up at me and said “Did you figure that out in your head?”