Countdown - The Most Extraordinary Numbers Game Ever? 

To explain why he's done this for people who might not understand: He wants to go from 318 to 952, and he figures 3x318 - 2 = 952. But! He doesn't have a 3 or a 2 at that point; he's just got 75, 50 and 25 left. He knows 75/25 = 3, and 50/25 = 2. But you can only use the 25 once. So in his mind he's thinking 3 x 318 - 2 = 952 (75/25) x 318 -- (50/25) = 952 So the only way to avoid using the 25 twice is to multiply & subtract first: (75x318-50)/25 = 952 And he's worked that out without ever needing to know what 75x318 actually is.

While watching this as a kid i always wondered why they bothered having an entire clock if they only used half of it.

Dang, all I got was “Steadings”

Our 952 times table went up to 30 so I saw the division immediately.

I don’t know why this is in my recommended but I’m not mad about it

THATS NUMBERWANG

I love how the host, after the answer is like, "out of curiosity, how did you get 953," and the other contestant sounds like, "Ah, who cares..."

You could go even higher with the multiplication if you wanted to: 100 + 3 = 103. 103 x 75 = 7725. 7725 x 6 = 46,350. 46,350 / 50 = 927. 927 + 25 = 952.

Everyone else get the obvious 953 in the first few seconds then thought "that'll fuckin do"?

All I got was tnetennba.

If this man was born 500 years ago he would've been burned at the stake, but in the 90s his talent got him a countdown teacup

This feels so impressive and clever, every time I see it. 106 x 3 x (75/25) = 954 is close, but he needs to subtract 2 to hit the target, and he only has a 50. But wait, the "divide by 25" suddenly fits perfectly into that. If you subtract the 50 right before you divide by 25, you actually subtracts 2 from the end result. He sees that, and figures it out, all in 30 seconds. So sharp.

I was happy with my 950.

Rachel Riley could have done 318 x 75

At first I was like why tf is this in my feed then I remembered that I had just binged every episode of 8 out of 10 cats does countdown lol

That he did that in 30 seconds, on TV, is insane, credit to him, that is brilliant

Gerald’s delivery of his 953 answer was just so funny after all of that

I can see how he did it without knowing what 318 * 75 was. What he essentially did was ((318 * 75) - 50)/25 which, simplified, is the same as 318 * (75/25) - (50/25) which is 318 * 3 - 2. which is 952. Very clever.

What makes this great is that he didn't even mention how unorthodox his method was. He just came out with it casually.

What I like about this is Vorderman wasn't pretending to have worked out the answers. Which she could have done, but like the rest of us she was so surprised by the turn of events.

This is how uk men in the 90's stated their dominance, 4 from the top is just madness hahaha.

The Australian version of Countdown is called 'Letters and Numbers' I think, who here thinks it should be called Count-Down Under?

I knew I shouldn't have skipped class that day when they were covering the 952 times table.

This is like John Carpenter ringing his Dad, not to ask for his help (phone a friend in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire) but telling him he IS going to be a millionaire, brilliant!

I just love how much Carol is laughing and enjoying this

Rumour has it, he's still getting noshed off by all the grannies in the audience that day

For those who are confused, he just can’t used the 25 twice that’s why he puts both parts inside the brackets and divides the whole thing with 25. Gets the same answer as dividing each individual number by 25. A pretty common strategy done on this game actually. This just uses bigger numbers than usual so gives the illusion it’s more complicated

Even I gave that guy a round of applause 25 years later.

Legend has it that Jon Richardson keeps a copy of this video in his home in case he needs an emergency adrenaline shot.

His strategy is very clever. He asks Carol for the 4 biggest numbers 100 75 50 and 25. He then uses those numbers as ratios of 25 so (100/25 = 4) (75/25 = 3) and (50/25 = 2). Essentially guaranteeing himself 2 picks of 4, 3 and 2 and a large number (100 in this case) every numbers round. Crazy.

That's numberwang!

01:50 "And then dividing by something": pure definition of anxious waiting.

Yeah but can he do it on a cold tuesday night in Stoke?!

"Yes, same way Richard. Yup.". [eats evidence to the contrary]

Cant believe he worked this out in thirty seconds. Amazing.

her face when he says.... "I'd like to multiply by 75" is priceless

Carol's laugh is more funny than the outrageous sum, she has a good sense of humour.

That was an incredible thing to work out in the 30 seconds he had. I think that what he realised fairly quickly was that if he adds the 100 to the 6 and multiplies it by three twice he gets 954 - just 2 away, One 3 is there directly so how to get the other 3? Well 75/25 = 3. The only trouble is that we need to subtract another 2 from that total to bring it down to 952 and we only have the number 50 left. But, 50/25 = 2 so, rather than just taking 318 X (75/25), we could do it as (318 X 75 - 50)/25. That way the 25 serves to reduce the 75 to 3 and the 50 to 2 all in one go :) The give away was that he didn't realised what 318 X 75 made. He didn't need to know this intermediate figure with the method above.

i love how when carol was asked to divide that she was just like "yea... ill take your word for it..."

Now THAT is the epitome of ‘method in the madness’. Brilliant 😁

I'm an intellectual because this was in my recommended. *updates CV

the american version of this game was cancelled in 17 minutes due to mass inability to think.

I love how Carol laughs in disbelief! 😀

I spilt my tea slightly watching this when it first aired. It really was that thrilling

There is always someone out there cleverer than yourself.

Carol was pushed beyond her design specs and started to break up.

I sometimes just return to this video because I really enjoy everyone's amazement at this guy's skills.

3:30 please have a minute of silence for a fallen soldier

Carol "you want to multiply by 75?" Maths genius" yes, that's exactly what we're doing" Carol: *throffing intensifies*

Obviously he mastered those manipulations of the big numbers, that's why he asks for all of them. So there are 3 variables instead of 7. It's a great strategy. I wish my brain could wrap around that logic more intuitively. It was clear he made an equation so he didn't have to do all the multiplication and division, but I would have no idea how to do that.

Nice to see old Twice Nightly's smiley face once more. A legend, taken far too soon.

Wow! That was out of the box thinking. Awesome.

funny seeing people posting easier solutions, they had all the time needed to come up with their solution, on the show you get 30 seconds.

Just watched the middle section from " 318 " 6 times now and it's still hilarious because of it's uniqueness and his audacity but also because he stopped her taking the mathematical shortcut by telling her to wait for the large division which would have saved her having to work it out and also what was great was after the " 23,850" Carol is awaiting the large subtraction to get the amount down and he, merely, subtracts just " 50"...Brilliant !

👏 that was (without A shadow of a doubt ) the most amazing numbers game I have ever seen in countdown

carols reactions were hilarious. i was in stitches!! brilliant

Rest in peace Richard whiteley, what a Gent

Been avoiding this video on my recommended for weeks, Finally decided to click on it and I'm not disappointed!! 😮

I loved watching Countdown after school back in the late 90’s

Ah !! Those halcyon days when Carol Vorderman wasn’t made of silicone and plastic 😂😂

That's Numbawang!!

While this is impressive there's actually another way to get it without venturing into such big numbers. This is how I got it, I can't imagine I'm the only one. 75 x 6 = 450 450 / 50 = 9 100 + 3 = 103 103 x 9 = 927 927 + 25 = 952 To me this was easier to see than the way he got it.

I love it how the guy doesn't seem confident in answering but actually has the correct answer. lol

I kinda wished for a moment that he’d get Carol to multiply all of the numbers and after Carol finishes then say that he forgot, Now that would be a good laugh

When I was younger, I used to watch the show that inspired this. It was a French show called "Des chiffres et des lettres". It wasn't an exciting show by any means, but I was fascinated by how people could solve the problems.

Carol: That is 318 James: Now multiply that by 75 Carol: and then you're going to divide that right? James: Yes, but not right away Carol: ... Carol: What will you divide it by? James: 25, but before that I want to subtract 50 Carol: You mean we have to actually work out this value? Pretty epic answer.

This guy would be great at Street Countdown

These long multifications are now quite common on Countdown.

Nice work James, Carol is now damp!

He just divided 50 and 75 by 25 in his head to get 2 and 3, and then used order of operations to use 25 "twice". Essentially, all he did was (100+6) * 3=318. 318 * (75/25)-(50/25)=318 * 3-2=954-2=952. He just multiplied by 75 before subtracting so he could "reuse" the 25(this is even clearer when the contestant starts calculating 318 * 75 along with the expert, implying he didn't already). Still neat, but doesn't look as clever without the heavy lifting...

The glory years of countdown rip richard you were the best xx

The way some people can think always amazes me. 30 seconds to work that out. Incredible!

This passes as a game show in Britain what an odd amazing bunch

pretty good. Im quite good myself i can multiply any two numbers. for example.. 3 multiplied by 4 is 12. And i can do that in real life pretty quick. not quite as good as this guy.. but still good.

Others have already addressed how he did it, but to summarise, he essentially used mental algebra and factorisation rather than straight mental arithmetic, which is why he didn't know what the intermediate value of 318 * 75 equalled, only that [(318 * 75) - 50] / 25 was 952, due to 318 * 3 = 954 and 954 - 2 = 952. From (318 * 3) - 2 comes (318 * 75/25) - 50/25, and then he essentially factored out the 25 so he could reuse it. (As for how he worked out that 318 * 3 = 954, it's essentially a rearrangement of 106 * 9 = 954; adding small numbers to the large ones is a common strategy to 'adjust' the total and essentially 'reuse' a multiplier)

Legend has it this man is now an overseer of illegal street countdown games across the country. Known only as...Number

Ha,remember watching this when it first broadcast. One of Countdown's more memorable moments to be sure -a seriously impressive bit of lightning mental calculation/algebraic insight. Going by memory the contestant was an actual mathematician ,with a degree from Oxford(edit: current Oxford mathematics professor) Consequently, this sort of thing would've been more or less a day at the office for him.

...incredible! I'm good at some math, but this was quite a challenge! This really could be the most amazing Number Game that Countdown has ever had to offer! Wow!

I always wondered if Carol ever used to sniff the pens.

He probably started with 106*9=954, which is close, but you cannot use the 6 twice, so the you need to find another 3 or a 6. Well, 75/25 gives you 3, so if you go (100+6)*3*75/25 you get 954. I expect this was what Carol was thinking - if he is going to divide by 25 then she only needs to multiply by 3. But he also noticed that if you are 2 out, then before you divide by 25 you are 50 out (2x25). So subtract the 50 before you divide by 25 and you are spot on. Of course, he has to do this in 30 seconds, and I could only get as far as the 954. Even the other guy had 953. Generally, though, a good tactic is to look for combinations that give you the same number, such as 3 = 75/25, then you can scale up and back down.

My high school maths teacher 'Mad Dog' had a game similar to this. He'd pick a year and then a calendar month and you had to try to use the numbers in the year (in order) to make the numbers 1 - 31. I remember one in particular when he was explaining his choice of year. I was bored, spinning a ruler on my pen. Suddenly my head was yanked back by my hair and I was staring into the eyes of Mad Dog; the sun gleaming off his long mane of frizzy hair that covered a tattoo of a naked woman on the back of his neck that was deemed to risque to expose to the eyes of minors. 'When was the American war of Independence'?! he bellowed. The answer to this is not really well known in Australia but for some reason I knew the answer and so responded in a feeble tremble '1776?'. 'Lucky' he growled in reply and continued on with his lesson as if nothing had happened. Ahh school days. But I'll give Mad Dog this, it was him that got me interested in the broader picture of maths. Escher, the history of maths, the oddities. And who could hate the guy that introduced them to the movie Stand and Deliver.

This is how he did it so quickly. Notice that 318*3=954 which is 954+2. And 318=954/3. So when he multiplies by 75: 75*(318) = 75*(954/3) he is scaling up by 25, or to evaluate = 25*954 = 25*(954+2) = 25*954 + 25*2 = 25*954+50. Or to put it another way, the '2' is scaled up by 25 aswell, so taking away 50 will get you to be a factor of 25 away from the target. So you divide by 25 to get the answer.

So he got to the answer without actually working out each step....I can't even begin to imagine how

This is so legendary that I do just return to it now and again. :)

We used to do these in math at school near the end of the lesson. At the end we would see a list of all possible solutions which were computer generated, for some of them, depending on what numbers you had to work with, there would be hundreds of solutions, most of us here struggle to find one.

WOW, I don't think I have ever seen Carol flumoxed. She is a walking calculator. I miss the duo :)

This clip lives in my head rent free 😩

2:10 is where he is revealed to be the absolute genius. he doesn’t know what 318 x 75 is, no one would, but he knows how to scale his answer correctly

In hindsight, this makes total sense. 318 * 3 is 954. But he needs 952. So he multiplied it by 75 and then divided it by 25, which essentially is the same as 318 * 3. The genius bit is recognizing, that he could take of 2 by subtracting the 50 before dividing by 25. It seems so logical, yet I would not have thought of it even if I was given 30 minutes.

Numberwang!

My God Susie looks so young! I mean she's still lively in 2020, but... So young! 🥰

"Roisin, did you get it?"

The clip kind of looks older than 1997. Didn't realise Susie Dent has been on the show for so long. She has aged quite well and her demeanor seems unchanged.

Actually really impressive. Cleverly multiplying by 3 and subtracting 2.

Ah who could ever forget the great Karen Venderman.

I’m wondering if anyone has a clip of the numbers game where the target is 400 and 2 of the chosen numbers were 100 and 4 (I can’t remember what the other 4 numbers were)? The funny thing about that part of that particular episode was that Carol Vorderman, at one point during the 30 second countdown, she is seen waving in the bottom left corner of the screen. Then about 10 or so seconds later, she holds up a board where she has written “It’s pathetic, isn’t it?”. I’d love to see that moment again 😂

What he actually did: He knows that 318 * 3 = 954, which is two too high. He also had the 75, 50, and 25 remaining, 75/25 is needed to get the 3. He realized that if he used the 50 before dividing by 25, he could use that to subtract the two he needed.

Even Carol was shocked at the answer he gave! I was astounded!

well, he wasn't really doing that large multiplication in his head, but something like this may have been his thought process: 954 , close enough, is 106x9 = 106x3x3. So you can do (100+6)*3* (75/25). Now you need to take away 2. which is 50/25 954-2=(100+6)*3*(75/25) - (50/25) But unfortunately you already used 25. However if you subtract the 50 before the division with 25, you get to use it for both: 954-2=((100+6)*3*75 - 50)/25.

Holy heck what sort of brain does he have? Incredible.!