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If you are a teacher then please also visit my new site: intermathematics.com for over 2000+ pdf pages of resources for teaching IB maths!
Cracking ISBN and Credit Card Codes
ISBN codes are used on all books published worldwide. It’s a very powerful and useful code, because it has been designed so that if you enter the wrong ISBN code the computer will immediately know – so that you don’t end up with the wrong book. There is lots of information stored in this number. The first numbers tell you which country published it, the next the identity of the publisher, then the book reference.
Here is how it works:
Look at the 10 digit ISBN number. The first digit is 1 so do 1×1. The second digit is 9 so do 2×9. The third digit is 3 so do 3×3. We do this all the way until 10×3. We then add all the totals together. If we have a proper ISBN number then we can divide this final number by 11. If we have made a mistake we can’t. This is a very important branch of coding called error detection and error correction. We can use it to still interpret codes even if there have been errors made.
If we do this for the barcode above we should get 286. 286/11 = 26 so we have a genuine barcode.
Check whether the following are ISBNs
1) 0-13165332-6
2) 0-1392-4191-4
3) 07-028761-4
Challenge (harder!) :The following ISBN code has a number missing, what is it?
1) 0-13-1?9139-9
Answers in white text at the bottom, highlight to reveal!
Credit cards use a different algorithm – but one based on the same principle – that if someone enters a digit incorrectly the computer can immediately know that this credit card does not exist. This is obviously very important to prevent bank errors. The method is a little more complicated than for the ISBN code and is given below from computing site Hacktrix:
You can download a worksheet for this method here. Try and use this algorithm to validate which of the following 3 numbers are genuine credit cards:
1) 5184 8204 5526 6425
2) 5184 8204 5526 6427
3) 5184 8204 5526 6424
Answers in white text at the bottom, highlight to reveal!
ISBN:
1) Yes
2) Yes
3) No
1) 3 – using x as the missing number we end up with 5x + 7 = 0 mod 11. So 5x = 4 mod 11. When x = 3 this is solved.
Credit Card: The second one is genuine
If you liked this post you may also like:
NASA, Aliens and Binary Codes from the Stars – a discussion about how pictures can be transmitted across millions of miles using binary strings.
Cracking Codes Lesson – an example of 2 double period lessons on code breaking.
Essential resources for IB students:
Essential Resources for IB Teachers
If you are a teacher then please also visit my new site. This has been designed specifically for teachers of mathematics at international schools. The content now includes over 2000 pages of pdf content for the entire SL and HL Analysis syllabus and also the SL Applications syllabus. Some of the content includes:
- Original pdf worksheets (with full worked solutions) designed to cover all the syllabus topics. These make great homework sheets or in class worksheets – and are each designed to last between 40 minutes and 1 hour.
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- Over 150 pages of Coursework Guides to introduce students to the essentials behind getting an excellent mark on their exploration coursework.
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There is also a lot more. I think this could save teachers 200+ hours of preparation time in delivering an IB maths course – so it should be well worth exploring!
Essential Resources for both IB teachers and IB students
1) Exploration Guides and Paper 3 Resources
I’ve put together a 168 page Super Exploration Guide to talk students and teachers through all aspects of producing an excellent coursework submission. Students always make the same mistakes when doing their coursework – get the inside track from an IB moderator! I have also made Paper 3 packs for HL Analysis and also Applications students to help prepare for their Paper 3 exams. The Exploration Guides can be downloaded here and the Paper 3 Questions can be downloaded here.
NASA, Aliens and Binary Codes from the Star
The Drake Equation was intended by astronomer Frank Drake to spark a dialogue about the odds of intelligent life on other planets. He was one of the founding members of SETI – the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence – which has spent the past 50 years scanning the stars looking for signals that could be messages from other civilisations.
In the following video, Carl Sagan explains about the Drake Equation:
The Drake equation is:
where:
N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible (i.e. which are on our current past light cone);
R* = the average number of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fl = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations)
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space
The desire to encode and decode messages is a very important branch of mathematics – with direct application to all digital communications – from mobile phones to TVs and the internet.
All data content can be encoded using binary strings. A very simple code could be to have 1 signify “black” and 0 to signify “white” – and then this could then be used to send a picture. Data strings can be sent which are the product of 2 primes – so that the recipient can know the dimensions of the rectangle in which to fill in the colours.
If this sounds complicated, an example from the excellent Maths Illuminated handout on codes:
If this mystery message was received from space, how could we interpret it? Well, we would start by noticing that it is 77 digits long – which is the product of 2 prime numbers, 7 and 11. Prime numbers are universal and so we would expect any advanced civilisation to know about their properties. This gives us either a 7×11 or 11×7 rectangular grid to fill in. By trying both possibilities we see that an 11×7 grid gives the message below.
More examples can be downloaded from the Maths Illuminated section on Primes (go to the facilitator pdf).
A puzzle to try:
“If the following message was received from outer space, what would we conjecture that the aliens sending it looked like?”
0011000 0011000 1111111 1011001 0011001 0111100 0100100 0100100 0100100 1100110
Hint: also 77 digits long.
This is an excellent example of the universality of mathematics in communicating across all languages and indeed species. Prime strings and binary represent an excellent means of communicating data that all advanced civilisations would easily understand.
Answer in white text below (highlight to read)
Arrange the code into a rectangular array – ie a 11 rows by 7 columns rectangle. The first 7 numbers represent the 7 boxes in the first row etc. A 0 represents white and 1 represents black. Filling in the boxes and we end up with an alien with 2 arms and 2 legs – though with one arm longer than the other!
If you enjoyed this post you may also like:
Cracking Codes Lesson – a double period lesson on using and breaking codes
Cracking ISBN and Credit Card Codes– the mathematics behind ISBN codes and credit card codes
Essential resources for IB students:
1) Exploration Guides and Paper 3 Resources
I’ve put together four comprehensive pdf guides to help students prepare for their exploration coursework and Paper 3 investigations. The exploration guides talk through the marking criteria, common student mistakes, excellent ideas for explorations, technology advice, modeling methods and a variety of statistical techniques with detailed explanations. I’ve also made 17 full investigation questions which are also excellent starting points for explorations. The Exploration Guides can be downloaded here and the Paper 3 Questions can be downloaded here.
IB Maths Resources from Intermathematics 