Birthday Brainteasers for Kunal Nayyar

By Aziz Inan | October 10, 2017 4:19pm
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Kunal Nayyar speaking at the 2017 San Diego Comic Con International, for "The Big Bang Theory", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Photo by Gage Skidmore, taken from Wikimedia Commons.

    

Kunal Nayyar, a British-Indian actor known for his nerdy astrophysicist role as Rajesh Koothrappali in the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, is returning to his alma mater, the University of Portland, this week on Wednesday, October 11 at 5 p.m. to talk about his career, his life, and his time attending the University. 

As a welcome gesture to Nayyar for his upcoming visit, I constructed the following birthday brainteasers for him: 

  1. Nayyar was born on 30 April 1981 in London, England. Interestingly, the product of the day and month numbers of Nayyar’s birth date, namely 30 and 4, gives 120 and the 120th day of any non- leap year such as 1981 coincides with 30 April.
     
  2. Nayyar attended University of Portland between 1999 and 2003 and his 22nd birthday that occurred during the time of his graduation possessed a special numerical property. Why? If 30/4/2003 is split as 304 and 2003, 2003 is the 304th prime number.
     
  3. Nayyar’s birth date 30 April written as 304 is also an interesting number. Why? Note that 304 equals 16 times 19. Furthermore, 304 also equals twice the sum of the reverses of 16 and 19, namely 61 and 91.
     
  4. Nayyar’s new age in any year 20AB in this century except 2100 can be found as follows: split 20AB in the middle as 20 and AB, add these two numbers and subtract one from the result. For example, this year, Nayyar turned 20 + 17 – 1 = 36 years old.
     
  5. Nayyar’s 34th birthday expressed as 30/4/2015 was also special because if split as 304 and 2015, 2015 equals five times the reverse of 304, namely 403. Additionally, 34 equals the sum of 30 and 4, the day and month numbers of Nayyar’s birth date. Moreover, if Nayyar’s birthday 4/30/1981 (April 30, 1981) is split as 4301 and 981, the sum of the reverse of 4301, namely 1034 and 981 equals 2015.
     
  6. Nayyar’s 53rd birthday April 30, 2034 expressed as 4/30/2034 will be a palindrome date.
     
  7. Nayyar’s 70th birthday to occur 34 years later in 2051 will also be special since twice the reverse
    of 2051, namely 1502, yields 3004, that is, Nayyar’s birth date, 30 April (30/04).
     

I hope you have a great time visiting University of Portland this week, Kunal Nayyar! 

Aziz Inan is an electrical engineering professor who teaches in the Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering at University of Portland and he can be reached at ainan@up.edu. 

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