What is 7 multiplied by 8?

Seven eights make 56, and this particular fact has a reputation for being the one adults forget. Psychologists who study arithmetic recall have found that the middle of the times table, the products of the numbers from six to nine, is genuinely harder than the rest, because those facts are learned last, practised least, and have few of the shortcuts that help elsewhere. Tens and fives have obvious patterns, doubles are memorable, and nine has the finger trick, but seven times eight has nothing to hang on to. If it slips, you can rebuild it quickly: eight sevens is the same as ten sevens minus two sevens, so 70 minus 14 gives 56. Another route is to halve and double, since seven times eight equals fourteen times four, which is 56. Some people remember it through the digit sequence five, six, seven, eight, because 56 equals 7 times 8.

Since 56 equals 7 times 8, it is also 2 cubed times 7, which makes it easy to halve three times down to 7.