An Odd Request:

[Mathless&Mad]

I am not mathematically literate. Never have been. Please don't hate me :^(

This is why I need your help!
You see, I'm working on a book right now. One which has pushed me to flex the math muscles which have atrophied since exiting highschool. All of the challenges that this story has set before me, I have found a way to overcome. But this one vexes me, and I find myself stumped.

For the sake of the problem at hand, I must explain a certain aspect of the world.
[ Don't worry, I'm not going to post any prose X^D ]

The people of this story are teeny tiny, and so their vision of time is dilated differently. As a result, they count one season [three months] as their chronological equivalent to our year.
In the long vision of this world's history, I have cataloged 123 seasons worth of happenings that take place before the beginning of my narrative.

Here's my issue:
I have no way to tell in which season any given event took place.

I don't know if that made enough sense...
If I look at season 45, I can see what happened there, but I don't know in which season those happenings happened.

So, if 123 is Spring, how can I calculate how the rest of the seasons correlate to these numbers?
Outside of typing out each number and going through it meticulously from bottom to top, [which I am trying to avoid,] I am at a loss.

So I've come to this den of wizards seeking council.
Please, if you have the knowledge I seek, I pray thee to share and thus make my life 20x easier.

Thank you so much for your time :^)

 

[Romsek]

Sounds like you just want season mod 4

Divide your season number by 4, there will be some remainder (or not)
The remainder value (including 0) will map directly to your seasons.

give it a try, you'll see what I mean.

 

[Harry_the_cat]

Sounds like you just want season mod 4

Divide your season number by 4, there will be some remainder (or not)
The remainder value (including 0) will map directly to your seasons.

give it a try, you'll see what I mean.

You say that 123 is spring. Note that 123 divided by 4 is 30 remainder 3. So any number which gives a remainder (when divided by 4) of 3, will also be spring.
Another, perhaps easier, way of looking at it is that 123/4 = 30.75 so anything else that returns a result ending in .75 will be spring.

Assuming the seasons in your imaginary world follow each other in the usual sequence (ie summer, autumn, winter, spring),
when you divide the number by 4, the result will end in .0, .25, .5, or .75.

.0 indicates summer (these numbers will be divisible by 4, a bit like leap years!)
.25 indicates autumn
.5 indicates winter
.75 indicates spring

Hope that helps! And no, we don't hate you!!

 

[lev888]

I am not mathematically literate. Never have been. Please don't hate me :^(

This is why I need your help!
You see, I'm working on a book right now. One which has pushed me to flex the math muscles which have atrophied since exiting highschool. All of the challenges that this story has set before me, I have found a way to overcome. But this one vexes me, and I find myself stumped.

For the sake of the problem at hand, I must explain a certain aspect of the world.
[ Don't worry, I'm not going to post any prose X^D ]

The people of this story are teeny tiny, and so their vision of time is dilated differently. As a result, they count one season [three months] as their chronological equivalent to our year.
In the long vision of this world's history, I have cataloged 123 seasons worth of happenings that take place before the beginning of my narrative.

Here's my issue:
I have no way to tell in which season any given event took place.

I don't know if that made enough sense...
If I look at season 45, I can see what happened there, but I don't know in which season those happenings happened.

So, if 123 is Spring, how can I calculate how the rest of the seasons correlate to these numbers?
Outside of typing out each number and going through it meticulously from bottom to top, [which I am trying to avoid,] I am at a loss.

So I've come to this den of wizards seeking council.
Please, if you have the knowledge I seek, I pray thee to share and thus make my life 20x easier.

Thank you so much for your time :^)

Not sure what you are trying to do.
1. If you want to be able to calculate the season based on its number, then see post #2.
2. If you want to easily look up the season by number - set up a table in excel or google docs that looks like this:

1 Winter
2 Spring
3 Summer
4 Fall
5 Winter
6 Spring
etc
It can be done automatically.

 

[Harry_the_cat]

Not sure what you are trying to do.
1. If you want to be able to calculate the season based on its number, then see post #2.
2. If you want to easily look up the season by number - set up a table in excel or google docs that looks like this:

1 Winter
2 Spring
3 Summer
4 Fall
5 Winter
6 Spring
etc
It can be done automatically.

But if 123 is spring, then the table needs to start at
1 Autumn (or Fall)

 

[lev888]

But if 123 is spring, then the table needs to start at
1 Autumn (or Fall)

I picked the first one at random, just wanted to show an example.

 

[Mathless&Mad]

Wow. You all are amazing!

I was expecting to come back in like a week to find y'all telling me that there is no such thing as what I need, but everyone came so quickly with such varied answers! Thank you all for responding!
May your lives bring you much joy :^)

 

[firemath]

May your lives bring you much joy :^)

And yours as well!

 

[Harry_the_cat]

Have we solved your problem though?

 

[Cubist]

I've worked out a simple way to get the remainder after dividing by 4. No calculator required. This probably looks long but each step is very quick!

• Only consider the last 2 digits (tens and units)
• Let "u" be the "units digit".
• If the "tens digit" is odd, then add 2 onto "u".
• "u" will be between 0 and 11. Simply divide "u" by 4 and work out the remainder.

Examples:

A) 943 -> 43 (hundreds digit discarded)
u=3
don't add 2 (since 4 is even) leaving u=3
3/4 is 0 remainder 3
3 is the answer

B) 3413 -> 13
u=3
add 2 (since 1 is odd) giving u=5
5/4 is 1 remainder 1
1 is the answer

I'm probably not the first person to come up with this because I've heard of similar tricks for other numbers (which is why I gave this some thought)!

Now you just need a lookup table like this:-

Remainder | Season
---------------------
   3      | spring
   0      | summer
   1      | autumn
   2      | winter

 

[Mathless&Mad]

Have we solved your problem though?

YES! Absolutely! And in so many different ways too. I know math is beautiful in the same way that one who is blind must know that a sunset is breathtaking. You all have given me a glimpse of color, and it is marvelous :^)
Thank you.