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What's your first answer to this problem?

Started by Martinus, April 27, 2016, 12:49:59 PM

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What's your first answer to this problem?

[spoiler]Answer A[/spoiler]
17 (44.7%)
[spoiler]Answer B[/spoiler]
15 (39.5%)
Other?
6 (15.8%)

Total Members Voted: 38

crazy canuck

Quote from: DGuller on April 27, 2016, 06:13:23 PM
Answer B.  Wouldn't even think of the first approach until I saw the number, and then realized what I had to do given its magnitude.

I was the reverse. I couldn't figure out how to get to B without reading this thread.  The procedure for calculating A jumped out as the obvious solution to the third proposition.

grumbler

Actually, the "obvious" answer is that the equations are not using base-ten numbering.  That the problem relied on false statements never even occurred to me.

I also didn't try to go so far as to figure out what wacky numerical base would yield those answers (I don't think a fractional number base is possible).

I like frunck's answer best:  recognizing that it is a false problem, the answer one gives depends on what you consider the falsehood to be.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

crazy canuck

Quote from: grumbler on April 27, 2016, 06:44:19 PM
Actually, the "obvious" answer is that the equations are not using base-ten numbering.  That the problem relied on false statements never even occurred to me.

I also didn't try to go so far as to figure out what wacky numerical base would yield those answers (I don't think a fractional number base is possible).

I like frunck's answer best:  recognizing that it is a false problem, the answer one gives depends on what you consider the falsehood to be.

Agreed.  Frunk's answer is best.  I am not as fluent in math as the rest of you so I just relied on the little I knew and assumed the problem required identifying the missing procedure.

11B4V

"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

"Obviously not a Berkut-commanded armored column.  They're not all brewing."- CdM

"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

dps

Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 27, 2016, 06:13:42 PM
What would be the proper way to notate the question?

I was thinking f(1,4)=5, etc, but that would rule out the sequence, wouldn't it?

Oh, geez.  It's been forever since I've had a math class.  I think it's something like

A: (1+4=5), A:  (2+5=12), A:(3+6=21);  A:  8+11=X



Grey Fox

#35
How do you get to A?!

Oh I get it, how can this come to someone before seeing the additions?!
Colonel Caliga is Awesome.

Norgy

Quote from: frunk on April 27, 2016, 02:00:59 PM
There's also many others:

[spoiler]
1+(1*4)=5
2+(2*5)=12
3+(3*6)=21
8+(4*11)=52 [/spoiler]

Since the mathematical expressions aren't used in their normal meaning I'm pretty sure there are innumerable different results that could be considered to "work".

That was my first line of thinking.

Tonitrus

My first answer was "hell no, I ain't doing that math shit".  :P

Eddie Teach

To sleep, perchance to dream. But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?

Alcibiades

Quote from: Grey Fox on April 27, 2016, 08:28:47 PM
How do you get to A?!

Oh I get it, how can this come to someone before seeing the additions?!

Took me longer than I'd like to admit to come up with B...A came naturally.   :wacko:
Wait...  What would you know about masculinity, you fucking faggot?  - Overly Autistic Neil


OTOH, if you think that a Jew actually IS poisoning the wells you should call the cops. IMHO.   - The Brain

merithyn

I got B almost without thinking. I had to read the thread to figure out A. But you all know my feeling on math.... :P
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

Solmyr

Got A first, but after looking at B I figured it out too without reading the thread further.

CountDeMoney

Nice to see that mathematics has been relegated to the equivalent of horseshoes and hand grenades.

Iormlund

I got B almost immediately. My test scores go like this: Spatial comprehension> Math > Verbal.

Maximus

Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 27, 2016, 12:55:05 PM
Surely the plus sign should be replaced with another symbol.
It's using a different grammar. The question is, what is the grammar that makes it correct. It's less a math problem and more a linguistics problem, although you can solve it mathematically as I suspect frunk did.

And as he said, there are probably an infinite number of grammars that would fit, including ones where the numerals have different values.