Today, I was working with a volunteer to collect sap on one of our motorized vehicles at work (yes, it's maple syrup time here in Minnesota!). We were chatting as we drove back to the building, and the topic of golf came up.
The volunteer was talking about the old golf course at the Minneapolis Airport. It's not there anymore; it was a victim of airport expansion. For some reason, he mentioned the par, and I asked what that term even meant. The course is par 3 for 18 holes, and he said "hmm, 3x18, that'd be 9x6 so 54 strokes for the entire course."
Uh, say what?
For some reason, I've never thought of simplifying math problems by factoring. But it's quite basic and a really nifty trick. See, 18 is really just 3x3x2. If you want to multiply 18 by 3, you're just doing 3x3x3x2. You can split that out as 3x3 by 3x2, or 9x6.
Fun times in math land!