[thewisedude]

I think I can reason why you are down voted. May be it was the delivery style of the message than the message itself. But I think it was unfair to you as you have a valid point. If you strictly want to asses the fastest way to arrive at this result in today's day and age. Your solution is probably one of the fastest ways to do that. I think the author's mathematical tricks would have been very useful in a world where personal computing is not where it is today... say prior to the advent of calculators.