A better puzzle!

[MrAce]

 

Still easy but takes a couple minutes longer than the first one i posted.

[smerriman]

38?

[ahydra]

 

 

67

 

pentagon thingy = 15 => banana = 4 => clock = 3. 3 + 4 + 4 * 15 = 67 (do the multiplication first because of BODMAS)

 

 

 

ahydra

[sfi]

Cute. Smerriman for the win.

[MrAce]

 

 

67

 

pentagon thingy = 15 => banana = 4 => clock = 3. 3 + 4 + 4 * 15 = 67 (do the multiplication first because of BODMAS)

 

 

 

ahydra

 

 

 

 

[smerriman]

 

The bottom right shape was what stood out to me too much - probably due to the shading. Initially I only noticed that, and not the other differences - it was only while trying to work out what value that would that I saw the rest.

 

 

Puzzle #2 - how were you meant to get 19 or 26?

 

 

I guess 26 by missing the multiplication sign AND the shapes, but getting 19 by noticing the different shapes but not the multiplication seems a bit odd, compared to other potential mistakes.. but maybe it was meant to trick people into thinking 67 was right.

 

[jjbrr]

This is obviously an impossible problem to answer and a huge waste of time.

 

It is certainly not a "better" "puzzle"

 

The clock is different, the bananas are different, and the pentagon thingy is different.

 

ETA: OK, I watched the video, my statement is still correct.

[MrAce]

This is obviously an impossible problem to answer and a huge waste of time.

 

The clock is different, the bananas are different, and the pentagon thingy is different.

 

 

 

ETA: OK, I watched the video, my statement is still correct.

 

Still easy but takes a couple minutes longer than the first one i posted.

 

LOL! My bad! http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/cool.gif

[jjbrr]

apparently the water cooler is mrace's facebook now

 

hey guys if cat+cat=6 what does dog= lol so clever

 

people are losing their ***** over this very problem lol series of stupid emojis

[Vampyr]

This is obviously an impossible problem to answer and a huge waste of time.

 

It is certainly not a "better" "puzzle"

 

The clock is different, the bananas are different, and the pentagon thingy is different.

 

ETA: OK, I watched the video, my statement is still correct.

Why is it impossible?

 

It is similar to the other problem in that the only issue is whether you noticed the multiplication sign, so not terribly interesting, but why impossible?

 

Edit: oh I see the quantities have changed too. Is noticing that supposed to be fun? Boring. I guess I don’t call it a puzzle if the answer is available by inspection.

[ahydra]

Ah, only now do I see the differences in the last line. Well, that's just silly.

 

 

 

shape = 15 because it has 15 total sides amongst its component polyons, bananas = 4 because it's a bunch of four, and clock = 3 was because it's 3 o'clock.

so the last line is 2 + 3 + 3 * 11 = 38

 

 

 

But one could equally argue that the quantities in the last line are undefined.

 

ahydra

[MrAce]

apparently the water cooler is mrace's facebook now

 

hey guys if cat+cat=6 what does dog= lol so clever

 

people are losing their ***** over this very problem lol series of stupid emojis

 

What is your problem ? http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif

 

I mean seriously, if you wanna get into it with me, that's fine, but at least stop sounding like teenager girls, trying to create a reason ! Puke whatever you have inside and feel better. At least that shows some dignity and honesty, instead of complaining about some topic ( which by the way no one put a gun on your head to join to that topic, all you needed was to hold the urge to click your mouse! Very simple, isn't it?) Just say it! I promise i will not respond! Just get it out of your chest and let's be done with it.

My concern is, this is very unlike you Jjbr! You are very smart and obviously educated young individual. Disrespecting me with methods as you chose above is one childish thing i can live with, but you are also disrespecting other individuals who decided to join and enjoy this topic.

 

Obviously you are very angry/frustrated or w/e. If I caused that, I may even apologize for it if you explain me what it was, here or private does not matter for me.

Just say it !

I am really not in the mood for playing this barking mad games from this topic to another and affecting other people too.

As I said I will not respond, except an apology if I feel I had my own share for things to come to this between me and someone that I do not even know much about.

[jjbrr]

be honest, did you see this on facebook?

[kenberg]

I worked this out before watching the video. I think the guy on the video overstates the logic of it. I was not certain.

 

There are six symbolic quantities:

 

Banana bunches of 3 bananas

Banana bunches of 4 bananas

clocks reading 2

clocks reading 3

Polygonal dodads with three nested polygons

Polygonal dodads with two polygons

 

Now to evaluate these six quantities it would help to have six equations. But the first equation makes it clear that the polygonal dodad with three polys has value of 15. Where do we see 15 in a way that would help? Well, there are 15 edges. Now that is the part that is plausible rather than logically forced. But suppose we run with that. Then the lesser poly dodad has value 11, the four bananas have value 4, and so on. If we go with that, the three given equations are true.

 

So, I concluded, it is probably right. I watched the video. It's right. But I would not say it is logically airtight.

 

Becky and I work the Sunday Crossword in the Washington Post Magazine. Horrible puns. So nobody put a gun to my head and forced me to do it.

 

I have a puzzle that I might put up later, after I figure it out. Stay tuned.

 

I sometimes think that tests on important matters can go wrong because people make a reasonable interpretation of what is being asked but something else was intended. Sometimes we cope, sometimes not.

 

In my high school and college days I held various jobs. I once thought I would deliver mail for a summer so I took the civil service test. I got about half way through it and realized that the way I was interpreting the instructions could not possibly be right based on how it was going. I failed the exam. I might be the only PhD in Mathematics who failed an exam to deliver mail. Obviously I should have read a copy of the instructions before going in. Or another example. When I moved from Minnesota to Maryland I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a Maryland driver's license. I expected to be given a driving test. Nope. They gave me a written exam. How many feet does a car that is going 55 mph travel after the brakes are applied? Ok, multiple choice, pick the largest number. I passed. When St. Peter decides on my admission I want a multiple choice exam.

 

Anyway, I am fine with seeing more of these.

[cloa513]

Why is it impossible?

 

It is similar to the other problem in that the only issue is whether you noticed the multiplication sign, so not terribly interesting, but why impossible?

 

Edit: oh I see the quantities have changed too. Is noticing that supposed to be fun? Boring. I guess I don’t call it a puzzle if the answer is available by inspection.

 

Symbols can't be visually manipulated. You have equations expressed in X and the result depends on V- it is insoluble. If you think can visually manipulated then the result is up for grab in every single case- you did one type of change but there infinite ways of visual manipulation it doesn't have defined rules. Just look at faked Youtube videos.

[Zelandakh]

Take a circle and draw a point on the circumference - note that the circle is a single region. Now draw a second point and connect to the first with a line - there are now 2 regions. Add a third point and connect to the others, giving a triangle within the circle - 4 regions. Adding a 4th and 5th, the series continues in this way:-

 

n R

1 1

2 2

3 4

4 8

5 16

 

So the question is: what are the next two numbers in the series: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16?

[barmar]

The point of this puzzle is very similar to the cups puzzle -- you have to notice fine details, rather than just the most obvious features of the pictures.

 

I'm very good at this when helping people find bugs in their computer programs, but I admit that I was fooled by both of these. Probably because I have decades of experience working with computer source code, and I've seen many of the common errors before, so I'm attuned to these syntax details. But I don't have much experience working with pictures, so I'm not as detail-oriented in that context -- a professional photographer would probably do well on these visual puzzles.

[Vampyr]

Symbols can't be visually manipulated. You have equations expressed in X and the result depends on V- it is insoluble. If you think can visually manipulated then the result is up for grab in every single case- you did one type of change but there infinite ways of visual manipulation it doesn't have defined rules. Just look at faked Youtube videos.

 

I see. Especially since the changes are made only on the bottom line, it is impossible to work out what the changes are supposed to mean.

[kenberg]

Take a circle and draw a point on the circumference - note that the circle is a single region. Now draw a second point and connect to the first with a line - there are now 2 regions. Add a third point and connect to the others, giving a triangle within the circle - 4 regions. Adding a 4th and 5th, the series continues in this way:-

 

n R

1 1

2 2

3 4

4 8

5 16

 

So the question is: what are the next two numbers in the series: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16?

 

I tried this with 13 points and I counted 794 regions but I may have missed one or two, my eyesight isn't what it used to be.. :)

[smerriman]

I see. Especially since the changes are made only on the bottom line, it is impossible to work out what the changes are supposed to mean.

I wouldn't say it's impossible to figure out that if 4 bananas represents the number 4, 3 bananas represents the number 3. Sure, you could define a picture of 3 bananas to mean 28 if you really wanted to, but on the silliness scale, I'd rate that sillier than some other uses of the word silly here :)

[Vampyr]

I wouldn't say it's impossible to figure out that if 4 bananas represents the number 4, 3 bananas represents the number 3. Sure, you could define a picture of 3 bananas to mean 28 if you really wanted to, but on the silliness scale, I'd rate that sillier than some other uses of the word silly here :)

 

But then where is the “puzzle”aspect? Though I must admit that little kids like this sort of thing. Perhaps it came from Highlights magazine.

[cherdano]

I think this is a great funny little puzzle if you get it, and an annoying silly dumb puzzle if you don't...

[barmar]

But then where is the “puzzle”aspect? Though I must admit that little kids like this sort of thing. Perhaps it came from Highlights magazine.

All puzzles involving analogies and pattern matching require making somewhat arbitrary decisions about what features are relevant. But these are still considered useful tests because that's one of the main components of general intelligence and intuition. How do infants pick up on language on their own? They discern the salient features that distinguish objects, and notice the relationships to the sounds they hear around the same time. No one ever tells someone the similarities and difference between cats, dogs, and other small mammals, we just notice them intuitively.

 

So while you could make arbitrary mappings, that's not natural. The point is to look for salient features.

 

In this puzzle, pointing out the wrong answers forces the puzzler to look more carefully for additional details. The initial formulas look like it's just "a picture represents a number arbitrarily". When we're told that this simple mapping doesn't produce the right answer, we have to look for some other relationship. And in this case, you notice that there's something numeric in each of the pictures that corresponds directly to the initial mappings (e.g. bunch of bananas = 4, and there happen to be 4 bananas in each bunch), and realize that this isn't just a coincidence, it's the whole point.

 

On the other hand, assuming that coincidences are significant is also a common cause of falacious reasoning. We often give too much significance to coincidences, because we assume that everything happens for a reason. If you're thinking about someone at the time they call you, you feel that something "spooky" has happened, because you forget about all times that you get calls from someone you weren't thinking about at the time.

 

But an important step in critical thinking is figuring out when correlations are significant versus just happenstance. So in this puzzle, you might first think that the banana relationship is just a coincidence. But then you notice the same relationship with the clock. Finally, it takes a little more work, but you can find the same relationship with the geometric figures. And then you put this together with the general understanding that puzzles aren't random (because they'd be insoluble if you could just make up any rule you want), they're intended to make you recognize patterns, so it becomes clear that these correlations are obviously the solution.

 

And if you can't solve it yourself, the fact that you kick yourself for not seeing it when someone explains it to you is also an indication that this relationship is somewhat natural.

[kenberg]

I agree with the above. Now it is probably (well, at least probably) a mistake to make too much of this but Barry's point about insolubility has a lot going for it. If we agree that the three banana bunch is at least different from the two banana bunch, and the clock saying 2 is different from the clock saying 3, and the three nested polygons are different from the two polygon figures then, and we don't need any deep mathematics to agree with this, we have way too many unknown quantities for us to able to work this out simply through mathematics. Basically, it isn't mathematics, it is something else. So what is it? Of course the answer has to be a bit of a guess.

 

Barry earlier commented that maybe his years of doing computer science actually interfered with his ability to do this. Exactly. It's the old saw that if you are a hammer everything looks like a nail. The first thing to do is to decide "I might be a hammer, but this problem is not a nail". After that, all goes well, or at least it might.

 

Long ago I was driving down to Roanoke with Bill and Marge Wilson, both now deceased (Kevin Wilson you will find on BBO, he is their son). We stopped for lunch, chatted with the guy making the sandwiches, disclosed we were going for a bridge tournament. When he learned that I was a mathematician he ohh-ed and ahh-ed about how useful that must be for bridge. Marge said that yes, not doubt it is, but it also helps to have a little common sense. Absolutely.

 

PS The problem that Zel mentions earlier about the points on a circle: That's a math problem. Points are points, regions are regions, you need to assume the points are "in general position" and then you just count (abstractly). I was joking about actually drawing it with 13 points.

[gwnn]

I like the principle espoused here:

http://www.flyingcoloursmaths.co.uk/new-years-resolution-genius-sic/

 

The resolution I would like you to keep is: start calling these things fake maths. Right there, in the comments. Instead of saying "It's 9, you morons!" or "It's 1, you morons!" or "It's ambiguously written, you morons!", say "This is fake maths."

 

I love you MrAce but I hate these "genius" puzzles.