Usually, it is her sharp wit and acerbic comebacks. And at times it is her math capabilities. (It does take a nerd to recognize another).

Recently, my nephews had sent me a puzzle. Using 1, 1 and 1, you have to make 6. Similarly, using 2, 2 and 2… and then 3,3, and 3… and so on. You can use the normal mathematical operators – but no other digits. For example 2+2+2 = 6; They had given me till 10,10,10.

8 is a little tricky. It would be 8 – sqrt (sqrt (8+8)). Note that sqrt symbol does not use a digit.

During the walk last evening, Niki and tried 11,11,11 and then 12,12,12 and so. Once we reached 19,19,19… she said something that helped us find a completely generic way of getting to 6 given any number (repeated thrice).

For example, can you get 6 using 73, 73 and 73?

Note that you cannot split 73 into 7 and 3.

The mathematical operators allowed (any number of times) are plus, minus, multiply, divide, parentheses, square root, log and factorial. Give it a shot!