Many here have argued that those who get the wrong answer don’t know how to use a calculator. Then we discover that different calculators work in different ways. All I’m saying is that it’s a little less simple than claimed.

I wasn’t offering to strip for £20, I did a life class and got £20 for expenses. 🙄

They gave me a white robe to put on and a cup of tea half way through, it was all v. civilized 😀

£20 for still life? How much for you to move about a bit?

(-:

Disgusting. 😡

Typical STW ‘Camera Club’ members:

Eeuuuwwrrghh. Makes me skin crawl. Dirty bastards. 😡

really…. WTF does it matter?

no-one would write that down unless they were a bit of a pillock (can you say pillock here?) and wanted to wave their mathematical willy.

i deal with numbers everyday in my job as a carpenter. i have to add and subtract, multiply and divide daily and consider myself resonable at maths.

if truth be told maths is bollox when you start with the whole BODMAS stuff. it’s just stuff that has literally been made up – bit like religions in that sense.

i’d say that over 99% of the population would never come into contact with that sort of sum during their lives. and if they did they would answer 0 because as we all know anything multiplied by zero is 0….

no juan, they’re not morons.

do you remember everything you were told at school? we retain information that we find interesting or useful to us.

how useful is it to know that the equation equals 26? surely if you do find that useful then you’ll be using it on a daily basis.

Thankfully that leaves the remaining few (1%), some of whom may have the ability to apply it for the benefit of the 99%, for example, as a probabolistic design tool to understand the design space for such things as carpentry power tools to ensure the product is safe, effective and reliable.

Take any single specialist skill, knowledge or technique and 99% of the population would be oblivious to it’s significance and incapable of it’s execution – doesn’t mean it’s useless though does it ?
The disingenuous “maffs is for losers innit” comments are so reminiscent of people who boast they can’t put together a flat pack cupboard, don’t ‘get’ art and haven’t read a book since they left school; rather than admit they’re unskilled/uneducated in that particular skillset they wear their ignorance as some kind of ‘badge of pride’ and sneer at those who can.

When possession of specialist skills or knowledge makes you the object of derision it reminds that a wise man once told me the curse of the modern age was something he called “the conspiracy of mediocracy”

🙄

Elfish = a complete inability to recognise the value of something that doesn’t conform to your own compromised world view, innit

let me reach out: check it on wiki innit

U mite now maffs but yor spelins rubbish m8. 😉

PMSL that this thread is still giving!
so many IT/computing bods on here and a subject close to heart.
of course its only due to the existence of those troll-ass spaces in the original ‘sum’ that we are beyond page one.

lets just imagine that the last two digits were 1. all sides would be happy! 😀

No it isn’t.

(-:

Good gravy. It’s not like it’s some obscure fact from third year History about who the third cousin twice removed of Alfred the Great was; it’s basic, basic stuff.

Yes (it is)! 😀

Now do it 5×1+4×0.2

1.8

5.8

5

😕

Question: why do you maffs geeks find it so important to be ‘right’ on this, and to be ‘superior’ to others? Are you quite insecure? Does being a geek make you feel a bit inferior to others, to the extent you feel the need to compensate by out-clevering others and claiming they’re thick?

Just that that’s how you’re coming across tbh.

What normal person thinks in equations like this when sorting their coins though? I just sort my coins into individual piles and add them up. Maybe I’m just thick though.

5.8

It’s got nothing to do with being superior to others… that just comes naturally.. 😉

It’s because in maths, exactness is important, and that is easily seen by the original question and differing answers. It’s because there is a definite right answer, and that by trying to explain it to those who do not understand, that maybe they will learn something…

Learning stuff is always good… I learn new stuff every day…

You’re right Tom. Any sensible normal person would just count up what they had ion their pocket/moneybox/purse/coppers jar. I spose if you were sorting through different coinage you might ‘bracket’ them according to value, but that’s about it I spose. I see where Graham’s going with that, but it does not in any way justify or back up his claims for twenty six as opposed to zero.

I think what it is, they can’t admit there’s different ways of doing stuff, and that normal people would do the sum in a logical fashion, rather than dreaming up brackets an ting.

‘Ooh I’m an engineer’ yeah but your wife is thirty six and from Holland. 😐

Work that one out then, geeks! Ha! You weren’t expecting that, were you? Where’s your maffs now come save you, eh?

And here we go, here we go-

BOSH!

I can’t see them coming back from that one. 😀