General Mathematics

[raecoffey]

Head to the roof and ask the superintendent to join you. Start the stopwatch and then push the superintendent over the side. Stop the stopwatch the minute he hits the sidewalk below. With the duration of his fall and the rate of gravity, we can figure the height of the building.

Formula: https://www.vcalc.com/wiki/vCalc/Object ... me+to+drop

I like your solution. It shows innovation and creativity. However...

In scenario 1, the superintendent becomes suspicious, grabs you, and both of you are killed before you can get the height. You Fail.
In scenario 2, this takes place in Texas, the superintendent discovers your attempt to murder him, he draws his handgun and kills you. You Fail.
In scenario 3, as soon as the guy hits the ground, emergency services are called, the building is locked down, roof video shows you pushed the super off the roof, unfortunately it was in Louisiana, 5 Louisiana State Police officers show up, holding you down so you can't breathe, and you die before you can give the answer. You Fail.

New Rule: Answers must use methods that do not include crimes of violence. Trespassing, extortion, blackmail, embezzlement and removing the tags of mattresses are permitted. Rape, murder, kidnapping, and killing bald eagles are not permitted.

Can't argue with all of that.

[raecoffey]

Problem #2 (And try doing this without using the internet).

Two kids from a family are talking.

The Girl: This is unfair! I have twice as many brothers as sisters!
The Boy: That's wrong, sis. We have the same number of brothers and sisters.

1. Both statements are correct.
2. You have enough information to tell us the number of children in that family and their sexes.


I told this to one of my teachers, he solved the problem in a few seconds, and he was my English teacher. This explained why once, in math class, our math teacher told us our most important class was English.

That one is simple. I think? One sibling was born with both bits?

[Tdarcos]

The Girl: This is unfair! I have twice as many brothers as sisters!
The Boy: That's wrong, sis. We have the same number of brothers and sisters.

1. Both statements are correct.
2. You have enough information to tell us the number of children in that family and their sexes.

That one is simple. I think? One sibling was born with both bits?

All children in that family are perfectly normal. So it doesn't work. Try this: give formulas to describe the problem.

[Tdarcos]

You have a clothes line with 12 birds sitting on it. You usea slingshot and a rock to hit one of them and knock it off. How many remain?

This one should have been easy., and I am surprised nobody answered. There are none remaining, because when you use a slingshot to shoot a stone at a bird. the others will fly off.

[Tdarcos]

Problem #3. Which weighs more, a pound of silver or a pound of feathers?

This is a trick question.

Feathers are measured in standard (avoirdupois) pounds, which have 16 ounces of about 28 grams (metric) which is 453.592 grams.
Silver is measured in Troy pounds, which have 12 ounces of 31.10 grams, which is 373.24172 grams.

A pound of feathers weighs more.

[Tdarcos]

How many times a day, and which times of day look exactly the same on an analog clock with no digit numbers when seen directly or in a mirror?

Depending on how you want to look at it, there are two possible answers.

1. If you figure there will be a slight difference in where the hour hand is when flipped, the answer is four: midnight, six am, noon, and six.pm.
2. Otherwise, the answer is eight: midnight, 12:30am, 6 am, 6:30am, noon, 12:30 pm, 6pm, 6:30pm.

[Tdarcos]

A man tells his his daughter to be home from her date by midnight. ... She goes in at precisely 3am, goes up to bed, gets in and goes to sleep.
Next morning, her father asks her when she got back. She tells him that she got back in at exactly a certain time. What she said, on its face, was not a lie. What time did she say she got in at?

She told him she got back in at "exactly a quarter of twelve." Think about what a quarter of twelve is.

[pinback]

I don't like that one.

[raecoffey]

You have a clothes line with 12 birds sitting on it. You usea slingshot and a rock to hit one of them and knock it off. How many remain?

This one should have been easy., and I am surprised nobody answered. There are none remaining, because when you use a slingshot to shoot a stone at a bird. the others will fly off.

That's precisely why I didn't answer it...

[AArdvark]

I read somewhere that Abe Lincoln said that same math problem, only it was crows on a fence.

[raecoffey]

The Girl: This is unfair! I have twice as many brothers as sisters!
The Boy: That's wrong, sis. We have the same number of brothers and sisters.

1. Both statements are correct.
2. You have enough information to tell us the number of children in that family and their sexes.

That one is simple. I think? One sibling was born with both bits?

All children in that family are perfectly normal. So it doesn't work. Try this: give formulas to describe the problem.

See you gotta remember that my pre-college math skills are minimal as I went to Monroe Middle in the city, pre Franklin, before dropping out in the 9th grade. Being in the inner city, math was like long-division for us at that grade level, not freshman algebra. So basically my basic math skills are crap, but I can logically think my way through the problem. It would be the total number of siblings is Y = (((2b + s) + (b + s))/2)?

[AArdvark]

When the girl calls unfairness, is that relevant?

[raecoffey]

I wasn't calling unfairness, I was explaining my lack of early mathematical skills that these problems seem to need. I'm good at higher math I mean I do have 2 math degrees.

[Tdarcos]

See you gotta remember that my pre-college math skills are minimal as I went to Monroe Middle in the city, pre Franklin, before dropping out in the 9th grade. Being in the inner city, math was like long-division for us at that grade level, not freshman algebra. So basically my basic math skills are crap, but I can logically think my way through the problem. It would be the total number of siblings is Y = (((2b + s) + (b + s))/2)?

I think you are very close. But you still haven't solved the problem, but you can do it logically.
She says she has twice as many brothers as sisters.
He says they have the same.

So, we have sister computing it as B=2f -1 (since she doesn't count herself)
Brother computing it as S=m-1. So first, we know that there are at least 6 kids in this family, since both say they have brothers and sisters, so there must be at least three of each since one is not going to count themselves as a brother or sister, they each have to have at least three of each sex. Since the girl says she has "twice as many brothers" there must be more boys than girls.

So if we have four boys and three girls, a boy would say he has three brothers and three sisters (both the same) and a girl would say she has four brothers and two sisters (twice as many brothers).

Thus, the correct answer is a family of four boys and three girls.

[AArdvark]

Oh, not you, the girl in the word puzzle

The Girl: This is unfair! I have twice as many brothers as sisters!

[Flack]

Problem #2 (And try doing this without using the internet).

Two kids from a family are talking.

The Girl: This is unfair! I have twice as many brothers as sisters!
The Boy: That's wrong, sis. We have the same number of brothers and sisters.

1. Both statements are correct.
2. You have enough information to tell us the number of children in that family and their sexes.

The children are gender fluid.

[raecoffey]

See you gotta remember that my pre-college math skills are minimal as I went to Monroe Middle in the city, pre Franklin, before dropping out in the 9th grade. Being in the inner city, math was like long-division for us at that grade level, not freshman algebra. So basically my basic math skills are crap, but I can logically think my way through the problem. It would be the total number of siblings is Y = (((2b + s) + (b + s))/2)?

I think you are very close. But you still haven't solved the problem, but you can do it logically.
She says she has twice as many brothers as sisters.
He says they have the same.

So, we have sister computing it as B=2f -1 (since she doesn't count herself)
Brother computing it as S=m-1. So first, we know that there are at least 6 kids in this family, since both say they have brothers and sisters, so there must be at least three of each since one is not going to count themselves as a brother or sister, they each have to have at least three of each sex. Since the girl says she has "twice as many brothers" there must be more boys than girls.

So if we have four boys and three girls, a boy would say he has three brothers and three sisters (both the same) and a girl would say she has four brothers and two sisters (twice as many brothers).

Thus, the correct answer is a family of four boys and three girls.

Ah right . I knew I was missing something, and that there had to be some equivalencies and that we would have to solve for b and s...

[Tdarcos]

Ah right . I knew I was missing something, and that there had to be some equivalencies and that we would have to solve for b and s...

There are five variables to solve: B number of Vreothers
S number of sisters
Girl says the number of brothers is B = (f-1)*2 where f is the number of female children, so we also have to solve f.
Boy says the number of sisters is S = (m-1) where m is the number of male children, so we also have to solve m.
Finally, we need the number of children N = B+S. So once we get m and f we get the rest of the answers.
So you could just slog it through by manually trying values for m and f, or conceivably a spreadsheet could compute the answer.

[raecoffey]

Ah right . I knew I was missing something, and that there had to be some equivalencies and that we would have to solve for b and s...

There are five variables to solve: B number of Vreothers
S number of sisters
Girl says the number of brothers is B = (f-1)*2 where f is the number of female children, so we also have to solve f.
Boy says the number of sisters is S = (m-1) where m is the number of male children, so we also have to solve m.
Finally, we need the number of children N = B+S. So once we get m and f we get the rest of the answers.
So you could just slog it through by manually trying values for m and f, or conceivably a spreadsheet could compute the answer.

Ok wait. Are you thing me that some males and some females identify as opposite sexes than what sex they were born into? You didn't say that. Also, that would make my 2-gendered sibling a possibility because that has definitely happened where a baby is born with born parts. Do you see now how it was unfair to leave that part out?

[AArdvark]

Needs more parameters identified!