# Can you still do long division?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [December 7, 2011, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342 "2011-12-07T03:56:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2011, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/21 "2011-12-07T13:02:29Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#):
>
> The real question is how many of you can do synthetic division to check the roots of a polynomial?
No – the REAL question is “how many of you can still extract square roots on paper?”
Remember doing those?
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2011, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/22 "2011-12-07T13:11:16Z")
Of course, as long as I can write it down. Though I was actually taught in school how to not have to write it down. You do the multiplication and subtraction in your head, and then just write a small superscript in front of the next digit.
I can also still do long square roots.
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### Author:  [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2011, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/23 "2011-12-07T14:00:16Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> I can also still do long square roots.
+1
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2011, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/24 "2011-12-07T20:41:50Z")
> [@Giles](#):
>
> What’s this “paper” stuff? If clay tablets were good enough for my ancestors, they’re good enough for me.
What? You don’t use chisel on stone? Shame!
Yes, I can do it, probably without pencil and paper if I had to. And I can do the square root algorithm too. I once wrote a computer program (in 8088 assembler language, no less) to do square roots. It turns out to be quite easy since you need only ask whether the next bit can be 1, a simple addition and comparison; if not it must be 0. Repeat.
I did once work out a cube root algorithm, when I was in 7th or 8th grade and had just learned the one for square roots.
And I just gotta tell this story. It happened to a good friend and he swears it happened. He was at a store buying something small that cost $1.99. The power had failed and they were operating by hand. He handed the clerk two dollars and she took out a pencil and paper and started computing. 9 from 0, borrow 1 and 9 from 10 is 1. 9 from 0, borrow 1 and get 9 from 9 is 0, now 0 from 0 is 0 so the result is 0.01. The clerk looked up in surprise and said, “Is that right, 1 cent change?” He assured her it was.
I once witnessed a grad student in mathematics in the office having to multiply 75 by 8. I knew the answer long before she had fished her calculator out of her purse. (3/4 of 800 is 600, after all.) A grad student in math?!?
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### Author:  [@xkit0katx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xkit0katx)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2011, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/25 "2011-12-07T20:47:05Z")
Thank goodness I do - had a calculus test an hour ago and I’d forgotten mine. There were division and fractions involved.
I actually don’t carry a calculator anymore, but then I’m almost never working with actual numbers.
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### Author:  [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2011, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/26 "2011-12-07T20:54:16Z")
Yes, as long as I can write it down and take my sweet time.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2011, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/27 "2011-12-07T21:05:29Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#):
>
> What? You don’t use chisel on stone? Shame!
I use a lump of charcoal and the back of a shovel. If it was good enough for Abraham Lincoln\*, it’s good enough for me!
-
- It’s almost undoubtedly mythological, but I read a children’s biography of Lincoln when I was in grade school, and it had an illustration of young Abe doing just that.
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### Author:  [@missinformation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missinformation)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2011, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/28 "2011-12-08T00:51:32Z")
Yes, do most of it in my head. Teachers used to get mad because i did not show my work the way they wanted
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### Author:  [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2011, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/29 "2011-12-08T01:01:29Z")
Many years ago, I was setting a production line and one of the line workers (~60 yrs old, who I knew dropped out of school after the 8th grade) and their was problem that required division. That co-worker started to do the problem by hand, while I went to get a calculator.
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2011, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/30 "2011-12-08T01:19:42Z")
As well as I ever could. Which, sadly, was never anything to brag about.
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### Author:  [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2011, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/31 "2011-12-08T01:31:02Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> No – the REAL question is “how many of you can still extract square roots on paper?”
Maybe. I’d rather know how many of us had an imaginary number when we were little.
Come on, admit it. You did. What did you call it?
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### Author:  [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2011, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/32 "2011-12-08T01:37:07Z")
Yes. Of fucking course yes.
(I haven’t peeked at other responses)
Born in 1962
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### Author:  [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2011, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/33 "2011-12-08T01:43:04Z")
Yep. I forgot a calculator to some summer college math class not long ago – nothing too bad, and I should have tried harder to test out of it, but I sure spent my hours doing sqrts and all kinds of dividey bullshit by hand with the bitch from hell adjunct prof at the front of the room. She did take me aside when I handed in the test and said, “I liked all of the messages you posted – very flowery.” Don’t know what that means, but maybe I should have fucked my way to an ace in that one.
To those who can’t remember: hang in there, as Jim Bronson said to the man in the car.
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### Author:  [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2011, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/34 "2011-12-08T02:36:54Z")
I think I remember the principle, but whether I could execute it correctly is another matter.
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### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2011, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/35 "2011-12-08T04:47:33Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#):
>
> With the division in the OP I can just look at that and see the answer, without conscious thought, faster than I could do it on a calculator. The 102000 is 8500 times 12. The 468 is 12 less than 480 which is 40 times 12, so 39. 8539.
>
> Mind you I spent years working for a bookmaker (the gambling kind) calculating and keeping track of bets in my head to enable him to make a profit.
I took a different shortcut - dividing by 4 is easy, so I reduced the problem to 25617/3 in my head, then reduced that to 8539.
But hell yes, I can still do basic measure theory in my head, so long division is kid stuff.
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### Author:  [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2011, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/36 "2011-12-08T05:20:05Z")
I’ve had to re-learn a lot of algebra and calculus in the past couple years, but long division has thankfully never left me. Like riding a bike, I guess, though not nearly as fun.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2011, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/37 "2011-12-08T05:47:53Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Quoth **CalMeacham** :
> No – the REAL question is “how many of you can still extract square roots on paper?”
Once, while standing around outside waiting for a ride, I entertained myself by deriving a method for finding rational approximations to square roots, and then applying it to 2 as a test. Then I refined the method to another, more efficient one. I think I got as far as 4-digit numbers in the numerator and denominator when my ride arrived. That method could surely be adapted to one with pencil and paper.
To the OP, I haven’t actually done long division in ages, but I’m familiar enough with why it works that I’m sure I could re-derive how to use the method as quickly as I could write down the numbers.
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### Author:  [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2011, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/38 "2011-12-08T06:05:19Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> No – the REAL question is “how many of you can still extract square roots on paper?”
What is this “still” you speak of?
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> Remember doing those?
No, because we never learned. I took geometry, then Algebra II… then 20 years later in college I took Business Statistics, then I got out of taking another college math class by taking Deductive Logic.
That’s just stuff since high school. Before high school we just learned decimals and fractions and how to add/subtract/multiply/divide them, and things like long division and very basic pre-algebra stuff.
We were never taught how to figure out the square root of a number on paper. I know this because I’ve always wondered how it was done because it seems like magic to me. I’ve wondered ever since I learned what a square root was–I said to myself–well how to they figure that out for stuff that isn’t so simple as 2x2=4??? And since that’s when I formed my lifelong question, and it never got answered, I’m pretty confident saying they never taught it to us.
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### Author:  [@Bibliothecarius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bibliothecarius)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2011, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/39 "2011-12-08T12:44:56Z")
I told my fourth grade math teacher I didn’t need to know how to do long division because when I grew up I was just going to buy a calculator, and I’m _stickin’_ to it! 🆒
Admittedly, my calculator ran out of batteries and I haven’t bothered doing anything about it but we have cell phones now with calculators built in. Go the future!
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### Author:  [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2011, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-still-do-long-division/605342/40 "2011-12-08T12:59:58Z")
> [@Blackberry](#):
>
> I can, but two years ago when my daughter was learning it, they had a different method than the way I learned it.
This.
As from the old “HMS bringdown” school, but the new methodology means I can correct my kids homework, but not help them if they get it wrong.
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