Sam’s Letter Challenge

GMCA Organizer Sam Engel has known letters by their position in the alphabet ( a=1, b=2, c=3 etc.) since he was a small child. Because of this he has realized that for virtually everyone —- even “numbers people” —- there is far greater exposure to letters than to numbers. In fact, in terms of total time, the majority of time Sam has worked with “numbers” in his life has been in the form of converting letters to numbers.

This experience has led Sam to believe that societal struggles with numbers are likely primarily result of the fact that our minds simply exercise the ability to work with numbers far, far less than we work with letters. By making an effort to work with numbers more often and more consistently, the “numbers” part of the mind becomes much stronger. Having significant, dedicated periods of time devoted to mental arithmetic practice is simply unreasonable for the vast majority of society. Instead, finding “numbers” around you throughout the day —- and making brief efforts to work with them —- is a more practical and realistic approach to training your “numbers brain.”

Using this simulator —- or following the approach above —- requires one to memorize the letter/number mapping below:

A= 1, B=2, C=3, D=4, E=5, F=6, G=7, H=8, I=9, J=10, K=11, L=12, M=13, N=14, O=15, P=16, Q=17, R=18, S=19, T=20, U=21, V=22, W=23, X=24, Y=25, Z=26

The simulator below is addition / multiplication. One can easily use whatever one’s preferred arithmetic is —- square roots and factoring numbers are two very different options, for example. The customization options in the simulator are below:

• The “within each word” option determines whether you add or multiply letters that appear within one word. For example, “Sam” would be either “33” (19 + 1 + 13) or “247” (19 × 1 × 13) depending on whether you choose addition or multiplication.

• The “between words” option determines whether you add or multiply the sums/products derived from individual words. For example, “Sam has two kids” could be either:

  • 33 + 28 + 58 + 43 = 162 (addition/addition)

  • 33 × 28 × 58 × 43 = 2304456 (addition/multiplication)

  • 247 + 152 + 6900 + 7524 = 14823 (multiplication/addition); or

  • 247 × 152 × 6900 × 7524 = 1,949,119,286,400 (multiplication/multiplication) (Good luck with multiplication/multiplication)

    Otherwise, one can pick the maximum letters for each word and the specific number of words given. Currently, the simulator has a 20,000 word bank.