this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by wischi@programming.dev to c/memes@lemmy.ml
 

https://zeta.one/viral-math/

I wrote a (very long) blog post about those viral math problems and am looking for feedback, especially from people who are not convinced that the problem is ambiguous.

It's about a 30min read so thank you in advance if you really take the time to read it, but I think it's worth it if you joined such discussions in the past, but I'm probably biased because I wrote it :)

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[–] Prunebutt@feddit.de 88 points 8 months ago (2 children)

If you are so sure that you are right and already “know it all”, why bother and even read this? There is no comment section to argue.

I beg to differ. You utter fool! You created a comment section yourself on lemmy and you are clearly wrong about everything!

You take the mean of 1 and 9 which is 4.5!

/j

[–] wischi@programming.dev 36 points 8 months ago (2 children)

🤣 I wasn't even sure if I should post it on lemmy. I mainly wrote it so I can post it under other peoples posts that actually are intended to artificially create drama to hopefully show enough people what the actual problems are with those puzzles.

But I probably am a fool and this is not going anywhere because most people won't read a 30min article about those math problems :-)

[–] relevants@feddit.de 16 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

Actually the correct answer is clearly 0.2609 if you follow the order of operations correctly:

6/2(1+2)
= 6/23
= 0.26

[–] MrVilliam@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Nah man, distribute the 2.
6/2(1+2)
= 6/2+4
= 3+4
= 7

This is like 4st grayed maff.

[–] wischi@programming.dev 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

🤣 I'm not sure if you read the post but I also wrote about that (the paragraph right before "What about the real world?")

[–] relevants@feddit.de 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I did read the post (well done btw), but I guess I must have missed that. And here I thought I was a comedic genius

[–] Th4tGuyII@kbin.social 2 points 8 months ago

@relevants you truly are the smartest of all men

[–] Prunebutt@feddit.de 11 points 8 months ago

I did (skimmed it, at least) and I liked it. 🙃

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Right, because 5 rounds down to 4.5

[–] wischi@programming.dev 5 points 8 months ago

@Prunebutt meant 4.5! and not 4.5. Because it's not an integer we have to use the gamma function, the extension of the factorial function to get the actual mean between 1 and 9 => 4.5! = 52.3428 which looks about right 🤣

[–] Prunebutt@feddit.de 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Not sure if sarcastic and woosh, or adding to the joke ಠ_ಠ

[–] Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] Prunebutt@feddit.de 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)
[–] stu@lemmy.pit.ninja 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think you got hit hard by Poe's Law here. Except it's more like people couldn't tell if you were jokingly or genuinely getting your math wrong... Even after you explained you were joking lol

[–] Prunebutt@feddit.de 1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I thought the "/j" tone-tag was enough ;_;

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] Prunebutt@feddit.de 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)
[–] Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 months ago

If one doesn't realize you're op, the entire thing can be interpreted very differently.
Then "Not sure if sarcastic and woosh, or adding to the joke ಠ_ಠ" could be interpreted as something like "I'm not sure if you are adding to the joke and I'm not understanding it".

[–] Sidhean@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

Stop it Patrick, you're scaring them!

[–] Lionel@endlesstalk.org 0 points 8 months ago

…Because 4 rounds up to 4.5