Alright, so I wanted to figure out the square of 112. You know, just multiply 112 by itself. Sounds simple enough, right?
First, I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, the old-fashioned way. I like seeing the numbers in front of me. I started by writing down 112 twice, one under the other, like we were taught in school.
Then I started the multiplication. I multiplied 2 (from the bottom 112) by the top 112. That gave me 224. I wrote that down, making sure to keep the digits lined up correctly. It is very important!
Next, I moved to the tens place. I multiplied 1 (from the bottom 112, but really representing 10) by the top 112. This is like multiplying 112 by 10, so I got 1120. I wrote this down below the 224, but shifted one place to the left. You gotta remember that shift!
Finally, I moved to the hundreds place. I multiplied 1 (from the bottom 112, now representing 100) by the top 112. That’s like multiplying 112 by 100, giving me 11200. I wrote this down below the previous numbers, shifted two places to the left this time.
Now came the fun part – adding all these numbers up. Here’s how it went:
- In the ones place, I just had 4.
- In the tens place, I had 2 + 2, which is 4 again.
- In the hundreds place, it was 2 + 1 + 2, totaling 5.
- In the thousands place, I had 1 + 1, making 2.
- And finally, in the ten-thousands place, I just had 1.
So, when I put all those together, I got 12544. That’s it, 112 squared is 12544! I even double-checked it with a calculator, and yep, it matched.
Honestly, it felt pretty good to do this by hand. It’s like a little mental workout, and it’s satisfying to get the right answer without relying on technology. Give it a try sometime!
