this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by wischi@programming.dev to c/memes@lemmy.ml
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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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[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The answer still lies in the ambiguity of the way the problem is written though

But it's not ambiguous, as per the reason you already gave.

If the author used fractions instead of that stupid division symbol

If you use fractions then the whole thing is a single term, if you use division it's 2 terms.

9 is definitely not the clear and only answer

1 is definitely the only answer.

[–] MeetInPotatoes@lemmy.ml 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] SmartmanApps@programming.dev 0 points 8 months ago

"The obelus is treated differently,” Church said. "It could mean ratios, division or numerator and denominator, and these all tweak the meaning of the symbol.”

This is the only symbols I've ever seen used (but feel free to provide a reference if you know of any where it isn't - the article hasn't provided any references)...

Ratio is only ever colon.

Division is obelus (textbooks/computers) or slash (computers, though if it's text you can use a Unicode obelus).

Fraction is fraction bar (textbooks) or obelus/slash inside brackets (computers). i.e. (a/b).