A Simple Maths Puzzle from Facebook

However I’m far from convinced little dick wearing pink hi tops and carrying a couple of cones of chips should automatically equal 19. Could just as easily be 200 (4*5*10)

This reminds me of the joke “An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician are on a train in Scotland. The astronomer looks out of the window, sees a black sheep standing in a field, and remarks, “How odd. All the sheep in Scotland are black!” “No, no, no!” says the physicist. “Only some Scottish sheep are black.” The mathematician rolls his eyes at his companions’ muddled thinking and says, “In Scotland, there is at least one sheep, at least one side of which appears to be black from here some of the time.”

Google BODMAS and come back to us

Whenever I see one of these puzzles on social media that involves BODMAS (or PEMDAS, BOMDAS, BIDMAS etc) there is inevitably someone in the comments complaining about stupid “modern mathematics” and when they were in school it was always just left-to-right.

Personally I’m 43 and remember BODMAS from school.

I got 112.

Can you take it that the lad with the chips and trainers can be counted as a single unit i.e. bracketed?

Trainers=5

Lad= 5

Chips=4

5 + Lad wearing trainers and eating chips (23) all multiplied by 4

5 + Lad wearing trainers and eating chips (23) all multiplied by 4

BODMAS: https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zsnycdm/revision/1

It doesn’t help that by default calculators flick V’s at BODMAS and do left to right. And then ever so slightly fancier ones include parentheses options to override LtR to get back to BODMAS.

Except MS Calculator, which I think varies by mode?

Clearly the maths bit can only come up with 2 answers… the cheap calculator one or the standard convention one. Most of the variations are due to lack of observational skills, even down to totally missing the fact that one mathematical operator symbols differs.

It doesn’t help that by default calculators flick V’s at BODMAS and do left to right.

They don’t it’s the user entering the info that ignores it. That said I’ve a calculator on my iPad that you write the formula down and it works out the BODMAS.

Whenever I see one of these puzzles on social media that involves BODMAS (or PEMDAS, BOMDAS, BIDMAS etc) there is inevitably someone in the comments complaining about stupid “modern mathematics” and when they were in school it was always just left-to-right.

Personally I’m 43 and remember BODMAS from school.

I’m 46, I don’t recall ever hearing BODMAS or its regional variants from school.  But I do remember that it was never just left-to-right, ever.

It doesn’t help that by default calculators flick V’s at BODMAS and do left to right.

Cheap calculators do.  Scientific calculators don’t.

5 + Lad wearing trainers and eating chips (23) all multiplied by 4

Also, count the chips again.

Cheap calculators do.  Scientific calculators don’t.

and some do both, and most people probably don’t even know which, and that’s even if they realised there were 2 (or more) methods possible on any calculator.

Indeed the MS windows calculator swings both ways. BODMAS only in scientific, not in standard or programmer. I just tried it.

No idea about my Casio fx451. Is that cheap? or scientific? The fact that it has brackets would suggest to me that it either expects the user to do the BODMAS bit, or make use of the B part and treat the ODMAS part LtR.

Anyway, I vote that the shoes are 5 in the first 2 lines cos that’s the number of pairs of holes that are laced, but when the chap is wearing them he’s got all 7 pairs of holes laced with noddy bows, so they count as 7 in the final line.

With no symbols to help, I’d default to multiplying items together, rather than adding them, to get your result.

One hightop must = √10

With no symbols to help, I’d default to multiplying items together

So if I gave you a shoe and said “That is worth 5”

Then I gave you another shoe and said “Now how much do you have?”

Your answer would be 25??

So if I gave you a shoe and said “That is worth 5”
Then I gave you another shoe and said “Now how much do you have?”
Your answer would be 25??

That is using commoners sense.

The man with shoes and cones is not a man plus the shoe and cone symbols, it’s an entirely new symbol that is distinct from the others. It is not explicitly explained what this new term is a function of.

If we are going to use a physical/material construct to argue the value of the man, shoes and cone -how do you know the value of the shoes and cones are independent values, and not dependent – eg is the value dependent on whether they have been worn and half eaten by said man?

Indeed. And 50% of them are 33% beagle.

so those voting square roots… is that + or – or both?

Your answer would be 25??

Well yes. This is a maths problem, so if you said the left shoe is x and x = 5 and the right shoe is y and y = 5 and then you said (with no maths symbols) what is the value of xy, I would say 25…

so those voting square roots… is that + or – or both?

We haven’t even got that far yet… 😉

if you said the left shoe is x..

But we didn’t. We said 2x = 10

You are confusing algebra and simple counting.

It becomes algebra as soon as symbols are used to represent something. The problem states that shoeshoe = 10 so xx = 10, if Shoe Shoe meant 2x, it would be 2shoe or shoe+shoe.

If it was a counting problem, it would be structured along the lines of “If a shoe is worth 10 and Stacy had two shoes, the monetary value of her shoes would be £20”.

I’m starting to get the distinct impression that those that come up with these puzzles are similar to people who can speak Klingon or Elvish. They’re the only ones that think they are cool or clever. Everybody else thinks they’re a massive prick.

In this case, the person who came up with this can speak neither Klingon, Elvish or Math….

No idea about my Casio fx451. Is that cheap? or scientific?

It’s a scientific calculator, and it definitely does BODMAS.  I have the same one.

I’m starting to get the distinct impression that those that come up with these puzzles are similar to people who can speak Klingon or Elvish. They’re the only ones that think they are cool. Everybody else thinks they’re a massive prick.

Funnily enough with this and the last one I come to a similar conclusion, my main comparison being the eejits who love cryptic crossword puzzles. (That’s me by the way. 🙁 )

We said 2x = 10

You did. I only used x and y as it was more concise than saying ‘left shoe’ and ‘right shoe’.

So ‘left shoe”right shoe’ when you are not told how to evaluate them, would mathematically become the product of the two, as in xy…

At least one of us is correct GrahamS, what is the chance we are both correct?

Life must be very confusing for those who see simple counting as algebra:

“Hello shopkeeper, I’d like to buy these oranges please”

“Certainly, five oranges is 50p”

“Actually, make it six.”

“Okay. Each orange is the fifth root of 50p, so six oranges are £1.09”

“Whaaaa..?”

😆😆

The problem with this sort of puzzle is that it can be interpreted in multiple ways (often deliberately so, I suspect).  Positing that left shoe = 1 and right shoe = 9 would be equally valid (though I don’t think it makes a difference to the outcome in this case).

However, let’s not forget, it’s a Facebook meme.  The target audience isn’t Maths PhD’s, it’s people who can’t spell ‘algebra’ or count without moving their lips.  Occam’s Razor applies here.

It’s arguably not even a maths puzzle.  Anyone who vaguely remembers high school maths should be able to work it out in a heartbeat.  It’s an observation puzzle.