Living the SLO Life

New Math
Tom Lehrer

You can't take three from two,
two is less than three
so you look at the four in the tens place.
Now, that's really four tens
so you make it three tens,
regroup, and you change a ten to ten ones
and you add them two the two and get twelve,
and you take away three, that's nine.
Is that clear?

Now instead of four in the tens place,
you've got three 'cause you added one,
that is to say, ten, to the two,
but you can't take seven from three
so you look at the hundreds place.
From the three you then use one
to make ten ones
(and you know why four plus minus one
plus ten is fourteen minus one?
'cause addition is communitive, right.)
And so you have thirteen tens
and you take away seven
and that leaves five...

Well, six, actually.
But the idea is the important thing.

Now go back to the hundreds place.
You're left with two
And you take away one from two and that leaves...

Everybody get one?
Not bad for the first day.

Hooray for new math!
New-hoo-hoo math!
It won't do you a bit of good to review math.
It's so simple, so very simple,
that only a child could do it.

Now that actually is not the answer that I had in mind, because the book I got this problem out of wants you to do it in base eight. But don't panic. Base eight is just like base ten, really...if you're missing two fingers.

Shall we have a go at it?
Hang on.

You can't take three from two,
two is less than three
so you look at the four in the eights place.
Now, that's really four eights,
so you make it three eights,
regroup, and you change an eight to eight ones,
and you add them to the two
and you get one-two base eight,
which is ten base ten,
and you take away three, that's seven.
Okay?

Now instead of four in the eights place
you've got three 'cause you added one,
that is to say, eight, to the two,
but you can't take seven from three
so you look at the sixty-fours.

Sixty-four? How did sixty-four get into it? I hear you cry.
Well, sixty-four is eight squared, don't you see?
Well, you ask a silly question, you get a silly answer.

From the three you then use one
to make eight ones.
You add those ones to the three
and you get one-three base eight
or in other words, in base ten you have eleven
and you take away seven
and seven from eleven is four.

Now go back to the sixty-fours.
You're left with two
and you take away one from two
and that leaves...

Now let's not always see the same hands.

One, that's right. Whoever got one can stay after the show and clean the erasers.

Hooray for new math!
New-hoo-hoo math!
It won't do you a bit of good to review math.
It's so simple, so very simple,
that only a child could do it.

Come back tomorrow night.
We're gonna do fractions!