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When I was in middle school, I had a classmate who would look at trigonometric functions and yell, "I will never need these!" A lot of us had similar thoughts but wouldn't say them out loud. But there's a subreddit that proves otherwise.

'They Did the Math' is full of useless yet fascinating calculations for all of us normies who can't crunch the numbers ourselves. From how many flies it would take to lift an average person to how fast a Godzilla-sized snail would crawl, here are some of the most interesting questions—and answers—we found scrolling through its feed.

#1

How Fast Would A Snail This Size Go?

Giant snail cartoon with two people reacting in fear on a city street, illustrating weirdest math problems.

innnerness: If we take it literally, assuming the snail is roughly the height of a five-story building (say, 15 meters tall), that’s about 1,500 times larger than a typical garden snail (~1 cm tall). Speed scales roughly with the square root of linear size if muscle power and proportions stay the same. So: Average snail speed: ~0.03 mph (0.048 km/h). Square root of 1,500 ≈ 39. 0.03 mph × 39 ≈ 1.2 mph (about 2 km/h So, this Godzilla-sized snail would crawl at a slow walking pace, fast enough to make “Walk for your lives!” actually sound like decent advice.

zsigubigula Report

Lotekguy
Community Member
Premium
2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This calculation comes as a big relief. One less thing to worry about.

David Paterson
Community Member
2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"Speed scales roughly with the square root of linear size". Correct!

Bob Brooce
Community Member
2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I believe the math, but I'm skeptical about the underlying premise applying to snails of unusual size.

Mike F
Community Member
2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Why not? Have you seen what the Japanese did with simple bugs in the 50s? 😅

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    #2

    Is The Math Here Accurate?

    Math problem showing the calculation of Henry Ford workers' pay using gold standard and its modern equivalent value.

    whynotthebest: Math is correct but the words are not. This is similar to stating that the 2010 federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr could buy you 72.5 Bitcoin after an hour, and since 72.5 Bitcoin is now worth $7,568,659.25, then federal minimum wage was $7,568,659.25 in 2010.

    Separate_Draft4887 Report

    Nikki Sevven
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Tangential argument: Ford's workers were not unskilled.

    Trashy Panda
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Assembly line work does not require a degree or certification and is therefore unskilled labor.

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    Michael Largey
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Ford only paid a worker $5 a day for an "extraordinary day". The usual wage for most workers most days was much lower.

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    #3

    How Much Would The Cat Have To Weigh For This To Be True?

    Kitten standing on a colorful keyboard illustrating one of the weirdest math problems people were asked to solve.

    SecondaryWombat: So it looks like my laptop take about 50g of weight to press a key (Source: I put my laptop on a scale and pressed keys). Standing still a cat stands on all four legs (I am choosing to extrapolate the existence of this kitten's other back leg). So while not moving, with its paws on only one single key each (which we can see from the photo is not correct) the kitten would need to weigh 50x4=200 under 200 g. However, it looks like each paw that we can see is on a minimum of 2 keys and that changes things substantially. 2.5 keys/leg x 50 g/key x 4 leg/cat = 500 grams/cat, and look the units cancel, so that means my math is right. A 500 gram kitten is about 5 weeks old, and that also looks correct visually.

    lvbbara Report

    Rick Murray
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My kitten just hooked a claw under the edge of a key, yanked the thing off, put it in her mouth, spat it back out, then stared at me until I got her something to eat (so I'd have peace to fix the pieces).

    Lee Gilliland
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Oh, just wait until it gets large enough to post. My cat had fans in several forums because I always forgot to lock my keyboard. Her comments were largely misunderstood but funny nevertheless.

    Anonymouse
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    BUT - at 0200 in the morning, the cat walks across your face with the weight of two elephants!

    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That might be accurate for a tiny kitten place gingerly on a keyboard. For a kitten walking under its own power the weight will only be on 3, or even 2, paws at some times and the weight won't be uniformly distributed on the paws. Also, keys can be depressed by force as well as weight, so even a 35 gram cat could sometimes be capable of applying 50 grams of force with a single paw.

    Karl der Große
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Cool, but how did that kitten do all that math before it stepped on?

    Andrew Keir
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Cats have even more abilities than one might suspect :-)

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    UnclePanda
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My six week old kitten came knowing two phrases: No! and Get Off The Keyboard! She perfectly struts down the tiny stip of plastic beneath them instead.

    #4

    Would 4 Balloons Be Enough To Lift That Small Boi?

    Person holding a dog attached to red balloons, showcasing one of the weirdest math problems solved creatively.

    electricsoldier96:
    They did it on MythBusters, with 3500 balloons and a 44lbs child. If this is a 20lbs Dachshund, it would took 3500 / (44 /20) = 1590 balloons.

    Fatteo Report

    Sandy Jones
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I didn't need to do the math, his back is not curved & his feet are flat

    UnclePanda
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    He's standing on a tabula rasa.

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    Fransanchez
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    You can see a shadow/shape underneath him

    Upstaged75
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    They obviously photoshopped out the table that the dog is standing on.

    Hugo
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    A cubic metre of helium has a mass about 1 kg less than the same volume of air at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. Let us suppose a typical balloon has a volume 12.5 litres. Then it will take about 1600 such balloons to lift a weight of 20 kg. What a waste of helium!

    SEMOLINAPILCHARD
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago

    This comment has been deleted.

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    Lee Gilliland
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I'm just wondering what the dog was thinking.

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    #5

    Could They Actually Still Make A Profit?

    Screenshot of a math problem about companies paying workers extra while still making a profit, illustrating weird math problems.

    e-war-woo-woo: Tesco is slightly over on Google figures for 2024 3128 million profit, 330,000 world wide employees = 9478 per employees. So if they paid 10k extra they’d be makings loss. But they could defo do 5k extra and still make a healthy profit.

    BladeoftheS , MMplayzYT Report

    Luke || Kira (he/she)
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    But what about shareholders? Will someone think about the poor shareholders who'd have to buy 20 less rental houses to speculate with? That'd make them sad!

    Scott Rackley
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    While I do understand what you're saying, pension plans, 401k plans, etc. are shareholders as well

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    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    You really need to understand who owns tesco and British gas. Hint: it's millions of different people making tiny profits, not a single person making huge profits.

    KatSaidThat
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Not the point, don't post record profits as a company and then raise your prices again in an already struggling economy. Thankfully other options are available - all the other options just have to undercut them by a tiny bit for people to come to them.

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    #6

    While Inspiring, Is This The Most Efficient Way To Move A Bookstore Around The Corner To A New Location?

    People lined up outdoors in a social setting, engaging in an activity involving books or papers in a math problem challenge.

    Single_Blueberry: A human chain is probably the most efficient way if you HAVE to use this many people, because they would block each other if they moved. Could you do it just as quickly or quicker with much fewer people? Probably. More importantly though, it's fun to do it this way and a good opportunity to socialize.

    ya_mamas_tiddies: This is 100% the most efficient way, as none of those folks are getting paid for this. What can be more efficient than free manual labor

    DarkGraphite Report

    David Morgan
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If you are using human labour to move the books, then a chain is far more efficient than carrying the books. With a chain, the humans stay still, and the books go from A to B, once. If a smaller number of humans carry the books, then they have to go from A to B multiple times. At least half the travel is wasted time, because no books are moved from B to A, only A to B.

    UnclePanda
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I helped pack up a massive used book store and that's how the upstairs books all came down the stairs.

    WFH Forever
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    This is why they used to have bucket brigades before the invention of tanker fire trucks?

    Lotekguy
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's the best, so long as they finish before it rains.

    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Only if money is your only criterion of efficiency. Sounds a lot like capitalism to me!

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    #7

    They Worked It Out Before They Worked It Out

    Man holding baby in front of a red door with wreath, illustrating a weird math problem about weight growth over time

    shelmich: If his weight doubles every 3 months, then by the time he hits 10, he'll have doubled 40 times. So if he's 7.5 trillion when he's 10, then we can solve for his birth weight in the following equation: 7.5 trillion lbs = x * 240 This gives x = 6.8 lbs, a very reasonable birth weight.

    pronounced_kyle , stee4vendetta Report

    Billo66
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I used to be able to do this. Kind of cruel how our brains deteriorate with age but can still remember when it was sharp.

    Armac
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I’m pushing 60 I feel this deeply

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    Lotekguy
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Now we have a future protector, giving us less reason to fear Godzilla.

    Andy Frobig
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    We should probably turn the kid to steel in the great magnetic field, just to give him an edge

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    Andy Frobig
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    He'll feel less self conscious if you call it 3.75 billion tons

    Jorie
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Poor daddy looks like he's aged ten years in the last picture.

    Stardust she/her
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Ah, sum of GP. The bane of my existence, especially in this problem where you have to calculate with numbers like 2^40

    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's what calculators and spreadsheets are for.

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    Lee Gilliland
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago

    This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

    And men claim women are dumb when we laugh at this kind of "logic".

    #8

    What Would Happen To The Turkey If You Did This?

    Screenshot of a weird math problem tweet joking about cooking a turkey at an impossible temperature to save time.

    jeffscience: This is 10x the estimated temperature at the site of the nuclear blast at Hiroshima. The turkey would cease to exist in any recognizable form.

    howie_hua , gimme_your_liver_now Report

    Robert T
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Yes, but would it have been cooked before it was vapourised?

    Lotekguy
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Very, very very briefly.

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    Karl der Große
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Darn, it looks like jeffscience ruined what seemed like a perfectly reasonable alternative.

    Hugo
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Typically a chemical reaction proceeds about twice as fast for each 10 Kelvin rise in temperature. Let's assume cooking is a chemical reaction obeying that rule of thumb. So if it takes about 4 hours at 175°C, it should take about 1 hour at 195°, 1 minute at 255°, 1 second at 315°. But it's not going to work because it takes time for the heat to be conducted to the centre, so the outside will be burnt while the rest stays raw. Better to follow the recipe.

    KatSaidThat
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I would not be upset if the turkey was vapourised and not making it to the table

    Liz Rutherford
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Jeff needs to realize it's a joke.

    Simon L
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    even if exposed to that heat for like a few nano seconds... it might be a bit too much ...

    Sally Moen
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Salmonella would also cease to exist on said turkey

    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The math on this is completely wrong. The Fahrenheit scale doesn't start from absolute zero, so 700°F is less than 50% hotter than 400°F . The proper temperature conversion is 809.67 * (4 * 3600) - 459.67 = 11,658,788.33°F

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    #9

    If You Made $7000 Per Hour Since The Birth Of Jesus Christ, When Will You Surpass Jeffrey Bezos, Current Net Worth. What About If His Net Worth Expands At Its Current Rate?

    Screenshot of a tweet showing a math problem about earning $7000 every hour since birth compared to Jeff Bezos’s wealth.

    GIRose: Jeff Bezos' net worth, ~$210,000,000,000 210 billion/7000 = 30,000,000 hours to surpass him. There are 8,760 hours per year So ~3,424 years to catch up to Jeff Bezos' current wealth at $7000 an hour if it was expanding at it's current rate, literally never because it expands by ~$8,000,000 an hour.

    thegreatola , Pocomics Report

    Norm Gilmore
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    No one. Absolutely no one, needs to be that filthy rich. Emphasis on the filthy because we've all heard how his workers are treated...

    keyboardtek
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Billionaires will likely be the ultimate cause of the end of American democracy.

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    Chich the witch
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    These billionaires are nothing but hoarders. Well, OK, dickwad hoarders,

    Billo66
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Sorry Jeff, I won't be going to space lodged in the head of one of your "Co­ckets."

    Nikki Sevven
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If you earn $1 per hour, it would take you 114 years to amass one million dollars. At the same rate of pay, it would take you 114,155 years to amass one billion dollars. Tax the rich.

    Lotekguy
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I didn't check your math, but it doesn't matter. The last sentence is absolutely right, regardless of any calculations.

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    Peripheral Visionary
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago

    This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

    He got rich cuz he sells what people need and want and can't find in stores so I give no f's about stores going broke or Bezos getting rich. And he makes it easy to get.

    Powerful Katrinka
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I knew Jeff Bezos when he first started Amazon. His business model was to s***w over his vendors, his workers, and the communities where he built his warehouses. He’s completely unscrupulous, he’s phenomenally dishonest and corrupt, and he cares for one person and one person only: himself.

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    #10

    This Feels Untrue

    McDonald’s sign with a cartoon fries box saying "I don’t belong to you" warning against taking just one fry to avoid bankruptcy.

    UncleCeiling: There are about 13,500 McDonald's restaurants, each with an average of 50 employees (As per McDonald's 2023 numbers). A large McDonald's fry has about 80 fries in it (numbers seem to vary from 75-90 depending on where you are getting your fries, and it costs $5 (note that that's retail, not what the company actually pays) for a total of $0.0625 per fry. So if every employee (not just the ones on staff) ate a single fry every day it would cost the company $42,187.50 based on retail fry numbers. For individual stores, it wouldn't even average the price of a large fry.

    lazertittiesrrad Report

    Bored Seb
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    they went a very complicate way to arrive to this conclusion... average store has 50 employees, so it means 50 fries per restaurant. So less that a large fry...

    Marnie
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Yeah, that's the route I went, also.

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    Robert T
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There is more wastage than that in the kitchen with spills and what is left at the end of the day.

    Trashy Panda
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There's way more than that. McDonald's throws away any food that's been sitting too long. Literally dozens of hamburgers a day.

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    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I don't know what everyone else got to see but for a dose of irony here's a screenshot of what I'm seeing. next>

    Trashy Panda
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I stole a lot of nuggets when I worked there and they didn't go bankrupt

    KatSaidThat
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Or you could just cook more of those $0.0625 fries at a cost of $5 and write it off as standard business loss against your tax return 😆

    My O My
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    80fries? Not in germany....

    Trashy Panda
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That sign looks like a Photoshop

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    #11

    I’m Really Curious— Can Anyone Confirm If It’s Actually True?

    Homeless family resting beside infant on left, aircraft carrier ship docked on right illustrating weird math problem.

    escaping-to-space:
    Aircraft carrier ~ 13
    Billion American homeless ~ 800 thousand
    High-density construction cost ~ $350/square foot
    13B/800K = $16,250 available per person
    Divided by 350/sqft = 46.4 sqft per person (of new construction)

    So depending on exact construction costs or repurposing old buildings, you could get a ~5x10 room per person. Not enough to house everyone, but I suppose technically enough to shelter everyone. Since that room doesn’t have space for plumbing or kitchen, you might be able to construct for less than $350/sqft and then maybe squeeze out a bigger room or have some shared bathroom/cooking areas but that still isn’t housing.

    Though, while I know we pump a ton of money into military, the price of one ship did give more per person than I initially would have guessed.

    DTMICNow , Depressed223 Report

    Luke || Kira (he/she)
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I have a brilliant idea: scrap THREE aircraft carriers.

    panther
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And how much would it cost to build the 20-25 "battleships" that trumpolini wants to build?

    keyboardtek
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It seems Republicans are OK building detention centers for people of color deemed evil, but are not willing to build homes for homeless veterans.

    Powerful Katrinka
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Here’s a fun fact: the Department of Defense has failed its last 8 audits, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. We shovel the money in, but no one has the faintest idea where it goes. And as a reward for this financial malfeasance, the next defense budget is over one TRILLION dollars. How sweet it is.

    Sally Moen
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Buying the land for said tiny homes would add to the cost. Also bribing the elected officials to allow housing, that's another billion

    Marnie
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    "Homeless" is broader than "houseless", so why not use that? A "homeless" person does not have their own home. They might be in a house (crashing at a friend's house on a couch), or in a shelter, etc. And thus, they wouldn't be counted as "houseless".

    Lee Gilliland
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Wait, are you expecting TRUMP to do math?

    NEMESIS
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The problem with free housing is that Humans, being the ungratefully pigs that they are, would trash most of the places into unlivable areas in less than six months.

    Trashy Panda
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    50 sq ft + shared kitchen and bath is definitely housing

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    #12

    Is This Even Remotely True?

    Nintendo Switch game card showing N64 library size, illustrating a weird math problem solved with surprising storage facts.

    Yes N64 cartridges vary between 4-64Mb

    388x 64= 24,832Mb so 24-25Gb if they were all max size.

    So they would easily fit on, especially once you account for the smaller games.

    Informal-Bus-9679 Report

    Owen
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Fun fact - Someone I know has a Gameboy type device that contains 14,000 older classic games. It has 128GB of storage, and no, I haven't counted the games on it to check. It was also cheap for a console at around £50. I'm pretty sure it's not entirely legal because of copyright issues. Someone I know got it off Amazon. If you want one, you'll have to do the Googling yourself. I think it was a good purchase.

    Rick Murray
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And I remember when a 20MB harddisc was massive (both in terms of storage and physical size). But, than, the computers that it was connected to had 32K onboard, so in relative terms it was pretty huge.

    Tom Brincefield
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    My first computer, I didn't get a hard drive, because what would I possibly do on it that wouldn't fit on the 2 5.25 floppy drives.

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    Lee Gilliland
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago

    This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

    Yup, and the entire Library of Congress can fit into a PC. Your point?

    #13

    If Every Person On Earth Went For A Swim In Lake Superior, How Packed In Would Everyone Be?

    Large crowd of people gathered in shallow water under sunlight, illustrating challenges in solving weird math problems.

    Appropriate-Falcon75:
    The area is about 82,000 km2 , and there are about 8.2bn people on earth. Which means that each person gets about 10m2 . So, if you arranged people in a grid, there would be about 3m (or 10ft) between each person.

    Apprehensive_Oven_22 Report

    Hugo
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Let's assume the average person (adults and children, skinny Asians as well as obese you-know-who) has a volume of 61 litres below the neck -- we'll allow them to keep their heads above water. So together they'll displace about 500 million cubic metres which is half a cubic kilometre -- given the large area of the lake it wouldn't raise the level very much. What proportion can't swim? Well, it might not be so bad if they drown: it's an overpopulated world.

    keyboardtek
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Most people would die from hypothermia before they drowned. That deep water never warms up to a comfortable temperature to swim in for more than a few minutes unless one has a wet suit on.

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    Rick Murray
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Think of the environmental impact of eight billion people having a quick pee.

    WindySwede
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Also the "get me the hell away from your pee"-impact!

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    Detroit Citizen
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Lake Superior is freakin huge. Source: Lived in Michigan all my life and have been on it. Its the size of small sea. Has it own weather too. The storms are like mini hurricanes.

    WFH Forever
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Check out the end of the Edmund Fitzgerald

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    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Since somebody didn't do all of the math I did. All those people are going to displace an enormous amount of water. Almost 17.5 billion cubic feet of it. That's going to raise the water level, and therefore the surface area of the lake. As a ballpark figure, the 0.012" of extra water is going to give everyone an extra 3.7 square millimeters of space.

    Lotekguy
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Once they're all in the lake, how many piranhas would it take to finish them off?

    Bored Birgit
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    You mean "to finish us off". You will be in there as well. 🤭

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    Doodles1983
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Enough to social distance. Works for me.

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    #14

    How Can This Be Right?!

    Math problem about probability of people sharing birthdays in rooms of 23 and 75, a popular weird math problem solved.

    A_Martian_Potato: This is a very well known mathematical problem. The post is correct. It's one every student in a undergrad level statistics course does. I won't go over the math to prove it, you can see that in the wikipedia page if you want, but the thing to keep in mind is that you shouldn't be comparing the number of people to the number of days in a year. You should be comparing the number of PAIRS of people to the number of days in a year. In a room with 23 people there are 253 pairs you can make. In a room with 75 people there are 2775.

    DependentCollar8541 Report

    Michael Largey
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Essentially you compute the probability that all 23 birthdays are different. This turns out to be a little smaller than half (49.3%) . So the alternative, that two or more birthdays are the same, has a probability of a little more than half (50.7%).

    Trashy Panda
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It takes 367 people to reach 100%

    IYAAYAS64
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I’ve never met another person with my birthday that I know of anyway

    Bob Swintosky
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Most people misinterpret the answer as meaning there’s a greater than 50% chance that they themselves will share a birthday with someone else in that group of 23. Those odds are only 2-3%.

    TMMITW
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The problem is known as the birthday paradox.

    Nik Odongray
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Amarillo Slim (famous gambler) used to go to a car wash and bet somebody that two people waiting in line had the same birthday. He almost always won.

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    #15

    How Many Pennies Will Be Needed To Make This

    A social media post humorously suggesting to melt down pennies to make a Statue of Liberty girlfriend, a weird math problem.

    STK_Pixle:
    A penny made before 1982 is 3.11 grams and consists of 95% copper, so taking 95% of 3.11 is around 2.95 grams. 1 penny = 2.95 grams of copper There are approximately 454 grams in a pound, and Lady Liberty is made of 62,000 pounds of copper. 454/2.95 = 153.9, which would round up to 154 pennies for one pound of copper. 154 × 62000 = 9548000 So in total, you would need 9,548,000 pre-1982 pennies, or $95,480 in face value, to make a second statue from just pennies.

    dumbbassonline , Suitable-Wealth4524 Report

    Owen
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    You would also need the iron frame. It is an iron frame with copper around it. So it would cost a lot more than $95k.

    Andy Frobig
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Iron is one of the most abundant elements on the planet, so "a lot more" is relative

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    Glenn Phillips
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Wait. The Statue of Liberty is gay?

    Lee Gilliland
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    What gives you the impression she's gay? She was modeled after Eiffles' mother

    R Dennis
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I don't think you understand how girlfriends works. Only (some) men think it has anything to do with s*x.

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    #16

    How Long Would This Take?

    Human brain illustration with glowing neural connections representing solving the weirdest math problems.

    PolyPorcupine:

    Spotify says it has 100 million songs and 6 million podcasts, average length of a song is 3 minutes, the average length of a podcast episode is 41 minutes, and the average amount of episodes of a podcast are 10. Also they have 350k audiobooks, at an average length of 10 hours. So you have 300,000,000 minutes of song And 2,460,000,000 minutes of podcasts and another 210,000,000 minutes of audiobooks. Totaling around 3 billion minutes of content. Calculating it's around 5707 years, if you listen to it at 5707x speed you'll be done in a year, easy. Though google also says that around 100K songs are added every day, so once you are done with those you'll have another ~300k minutes every day.

    urlocalweedman Report

    Rick Murray
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    "So you have 300,000,000 minutes of song" meh, amateurs, symphonic metal songs are longer. 🤘😂

    Sally Moen
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I'd like it better if Spotify was cheaper, if not free, like Libby, the library app with audiobooks, magazines, graphic e-novels, and e-books. And you can sign up for multiple accounts with separate libraries.

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    #17

    [request] Did They Actually Do The Math?

    Diagram showing math formulas about donut holes as the perfect shape to deliver more glaze, illustrating weird math problems solved.

    Ritterbruder2:
    A sphere has the lowest surface area to volume ratio of any shape. It’s going to have the lowest glaze to dough ratio of any pastry.

    Salt-Sound2705 Report

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    #18

    Could This Be Accurate?

    Couple sharing pizza with Earth in background and text about 0.7% of the population being drunk, weird math problem.

    Warm-Finance8400: That would translate to the average person being drunk 0.7% of the time. A week has 168 hours, 0.7% of that would be ≈ 1.2 hours per week drunk. Seems reasonable to me.

    leppernfriends Report

    Luke || Kira (he/she)
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I wonder who does all that drinking on my behalf

    Trashy Panda
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The average person spends nowhere near 1.2 hours per week drunk. I don't think there are enough alcoholics to make up the difference.

    Tim Douglass
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Well, we do need to establish what is meant by drunk, but, back in my youth, when I still drank, I would get off shift at the restaurant at 11:30 and typically hammer a couple of beers right away, so by midnight I would have a bit of a buzz. Normally would continue to drink until 2 AM or later. Definitely alcohol affected the whole time. That's 10 hours a week. Add 4-6 hours every Saturday and it starts to amount to a lot. Then there were the guys at work who actually drank quite a bit. Not unusual for some of them to come in at 3:00 (15:00) with a good buzz on and maintain that until 2 or 3 AM. Honesty, among blue collar types I'm going to say 1.2 hours a day, let alone a week, is conservative.

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    #19

    Is This True?

    Tweet showing a math problem about wealth distribution among the richest men and the global population.

    Public-Eagle6992: I‘m not sure how exactly the statement is meant so I’ll interpret it one way but also state other ways how it could be interpreted. "The ten richest men…" could either mean each of them individually or all of them combined. I‘ll go with individually. "Their riches wealth" I assume this means net worth "Richer than 99%" could mean the wealth of the 99% combined, could mean the average wealth of the 99% or could mean the highest amount of money anyone in the 99% has. I‘ll go with highest Wealth of 10th richest person: 121 billion. -99.999% that’s 1.21 million. 1.1% of adults have at least 1 million, so when having 1 million, you can still be in the lowest 99%. So it might be true, it’s close.

    RBReich , RashoRash Report

    justagirl
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    (gregorian chanting) Tax the rich! Tax the rich! The rich: Did they just say "more tariffs?"

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    Bob Swintosky
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If you’re looking at the world’s population, someone with $1 million could lose that percentage, and be wealthier than 99% of the population.

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    #20

    Is This True? Only 33 Wins?

    A nighttime cityscape with traffic congestion illustrating a math problem about a 1 on 1 tournament and 33 wins needed.

    wayoverpaid: This assumes a single elimination, best of one tournament. Say something like rock paper scissors or a coin flip. You need one round for the finals. So one game for the finals. Semifinals has four people, quarter finals has eight people. Each round cuts the field in half. The winner only needs to win one round from that game. With 33 rounds, you get 233 people. That's 8,589,934,592. World population is under 8.3 billion. So the winner MIGHT get a bye in the first round, and only have 32 games. But 33 games guarantees the win.

    Pabloescobarg Report

    Apatheist
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's basically 2 to the power of 33 (or whatever takes it beyond the world population). Ignore the 233 people, that's irrelevant and confusing. Also worth noting that with a strict knockout with N participants, one needs N-1 games to take place - it doesn't matter about byes. That's derived from the fact that everyone loses once, apart from the winner.

    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's actually 0.5^33. 8,265,136,454 * .5^n =x. For n=33 x=0.96. It may be even easier if you just repeatedly divide by two because you can do it in 15 seconds with a calculator. FWIW, When I asked Google about world population it gave me an even number but the first round leaves an odd number of people, so that thoroughly screws up the idea of having everyone pair up in twos. We can't hold the contest until population goes up by 324,798,138 people.

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    Owen
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I have realised today I cannot math.

    Karl der Große
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    One nice lucky streak, and I'll be #1 in the whole world. I am counting on this to be true.

    Andrew Keir
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Your waste paper bin must be knee-deep in lottery tickets then

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    Lee Gilliland
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Somebody has too much time on his hands.

    #21

    Assuming She Falls And Directly Into The Water, What Are The Odds She Survives? At What Height Is A Death Of Human Falling Into Water Inevitable?

    Woman hanging off edge of skyscraper, illustrating the weirdest math problems people got asked to solve.

    natesplace19010:

    It’s basically 99.99% fatal at 200 ft or more. That said, there’s always a chance but it would involve an act of god like a hugely perfect gust of wind or the water randomly getting airated by underwater gasses.

    yesyesnopeyesyes Report

    David Paterson
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Old people will tell you that a fall from just one metre can be fatal if you land badly.

    Andrew Keir
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    People who don't realise this, are not noted for their longevity

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    Daisydaisy
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And here's another photo I can't look at!

    Bec
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Yes, it turned out blurry, bf needs to do better!

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    Lotekguy
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Does it make a difference if it is salt water or freshwater?

    martin734
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It all depends on the landing. If she landed feet first or hands first in a perfectly perpendicular position, hitting the water with the smallest possible cross section, then it is survivable. Anything other than that will almost certainly be fatal, either instantly from the impact or from drowning due to being unable to swim due to her injuries.

    T.O.S.o.R.
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Walter fell from a plane without a parachute and a perfectly timed underwater b**b provided enough aeration and he survived!

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    #22

    How Many Layers Of Paint Would I Need To Fill In A 5m X 5m Room

    Fish character looking confused while holding a drink, illustrating a weird math problem about room size shrinking.

    CHG__:
    Assuming a paint layer is 100μm thick it would take 10,000 layers to equal 1 meter of thickness, so 5 meters would be 50,000 layers.

    Rawshaque Report

    Hugo
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's painting just one wall, filling the space toward the opposite wall. Normally one paints all four walls, so half as many layers are required, but the area (and thus the volume) of each gets smaller each time. How long is it going to take to apply 25 thousand layers of paint?

    Freddy M. (He/Him)
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    You could probably get it done in one lifetime, if you just do one layer per day and let it dry, that's ~68.5 years

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    Stardust she/her
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I’ve always thought about this question a lot, thank you for this answer. I should’ve calculated this on my own tbh, was a very simple problem

    Geoffrey Scott
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I've always said, if you removed every layer of paint from our 100 year old Middle School, it'd pop 3 feet out of the ground.

    #23

    How Long Would One Person With A Shovel Need, If They Work 8 Hours Per Day, 7 Days A Week?

    Map of the United States with a humorous comment on solving a weird math problem about building a river.

    anon:

    This river looks to be 100 miles wide, and stretches about 2700 miles. lets give it an average depth of 15 feet. converting everything to feet 15 x 528000 x 142560000 = 1,129,075,200,000,000 cubic feet Assuming you had a human who could work 8 hours straight without tiring and can shovel 1 cubic foot every 15 seconds (with a crew to help move the dirt he shovels). This would take 282,268,800,000,000 minutes or 4,704,480,000,000 hours or 196,020,000,000 days or 537,041,096 years.

    BiLeftHanded Report

    Remi (He/Him)
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That calculation isn't adding the extra material you need to dig to get through the mountains and hills on the way. If you want to be 15ft below sea level for the ditch, you need to remove much more than 15ft in most places along the route

    WindySwede
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    But if 150 M humans worked in this, it would take 3y 7m to comeplete if math above checks out. But also the pesky land elevation you talk about 🙃

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    Andy Frobig
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Why one person? The post said it would create a lot of jobs

    David Paterson
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Using normal width canals between navigable rivers would make this much easier.

    Chich the witch
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    This is something like the Rhinoceros party we once had. Their promise if elected was to bulldoze the Rockies into a gradual slope to the Maritimes so you could coast coast to coast across Canada.

    Apatheist
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Or just go via the Panama canal...the curiosity of which is that it runs north-south, not east-west.

    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And the "eastern" end is west of the "western" end.

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    Sally Moen
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Let's get started. We can repurpose the Wall to line the river bank

    Asher Nelson
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    so much censorship it looks like the epstein files

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    #24

    Could This Be Done?

    Screenshot of a math problem involving comparing drinking habits between 68 million UK and 330 million Americans.

    For each beer a single American drinks, a brit would have to drink nearly 5 based on numbers alone.

    The_not-so_chosen_1 Report

    Rick Murray
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    🤔 Doable, hold my 🍺...oh, wait...

    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    American beer is mostly like sėx in a canoe, though. Fûcking close to water....

    eric p
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Except most craft beers in the US average 8-10% abv compared to the 6% average in the UK, nice try though. If you're talking about Bud, then sure, but no self respecting drinker would even touch that

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    Andrew Keir
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Now, if either country concentrated on *thinking* instead of *drinking* , we might achieve something.

    Scott Rackley
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    UK needs to worry about out drinking Wisconsin

    Jake Bertz
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Your average Wisconsin college kid drinks more than your average British pub.

    Trashy Panda
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Americans don't drink as much as we think we do

    Nikki Sevven
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's not the flex you think it is.

    David Paterson
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The UK drinks only slightly more alcohol per person of drinking age than the USA. Like 20% more, but that's legal liquor. The USA has a much higher proportion of out and out drunks and deaths from alcohol, illegal liquor in the USA is the problem.

    Sally Moen
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Eliminating the sober and other non-drinkers (due to age and medication taken and other factors)

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    #25

    Would 20,000 Flies Be Enough To Lift Me?

    Screenshot of a weird math problem about 20,000 flies tethered to strings lifting a body into the sky, solved creatively.

    Surly_Dwarf:

    No. Almost 5 million flies (or 437k bumble bees, or 65k monarch butterflies, or 10k hummingbirds, or 2.9k sparrows, or 1.9k fruit bats, or 441 pigeons, or 25 bald eagles) to lift a 110 pound person.

    charminglyantiquated , Annath0901 Report

    Rick Murray
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    So, how fast can a laden *sparrow* fly?

    Billo66
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Go ahead and double that for me.

    Lotekguy
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    How many ants?

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    #26

    Did They Avoid Retinal Damage?

    Stack of sunglasses taped together in a creative solution to watch the eclipse, showcasing weirdest math problems solved.

    ModeMysterious3207:
    Assume typical sunglasses with a 30% transmission. Is that seven pairs of sunglasses? 0.37 is 0.02% transmission. Recommended for solar filters is 0.001%, so, not dark enough. Eye damage? Depends on how long you look

    rubentheboy Report

    Billo66
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And no, looking through an old floppy disk isn't safe either. It does work as an IR filter (Infrared) but not enough. A welders helmet or the lens of one works though.

    Remi (He/Him)
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Welder's glass works but you need to check it's strength because they have stronger and weaker versions

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    Jaya
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's 0.3 (30% transmission) to the power of 7 = 0.0002 = 0.02%. The original post displays it as 0.3 with the 7 in smaller letters above it, and that layout can get lost when copying information, making it look like 0.37 instead of 0.3^7

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    David Paterson
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Depends on how long you look. I've looked briefly (5 seconds) at a total eclipse without sunglasses and not had any damage from it.

    michael reid
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I have actually done that. It takes at least 3 sets of sunglasses to be able to see the sun ok. But a welding mask is best.

    Scott Rackley
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Last one I used a big piece of number 12 glass

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    Hugo
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Not 0.37 but 0.3 to the power 7. BP is not very bright.

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    #27

    Is This True?

    Two baby rats resting on a hand illustrating a weird math problem about exponential rat population growth.

    Angzt:
    Let's go with the following assumptions: Rat lifespans are around 2-4 years, so we can (kind of) ignore them dying off. Rat pregnancies last around 25 days, with a few days recovery before the next pregnancy, let's round that up to 30 days. Rats reach adulthood at around 60 days. The size of a rat litter is around 6 to 18, so let's go with an average of 12. Let's also only look at the female rat population and then double at the end. It'll make things a bit easier. So our litter size is only 6. Since our pregnancy and time to adulthood are both divisible by 30, let's go with 30 days as our time period. Then 3 years are 365 * 3 / 30 = 36.5, so 36 time periods. Now, we need to track 2 variables: The number of adult femal rats (a) and the number of newborn female baby rats (b) in relation to our time periods. We know that we start with 1 adult female rat and 0 babies. So: a(0) = 1 b(0) = 0 We also know that the number of adults at any given time is the number of adults of the previous time period plus all the newly matured rats. The latter being the baby rats from 2 periods ago. So: a(t) = a(t-1) + b(t-2) Finally, the number of newborn rats is simply 6 times the number of adult females in the preceding period: b(t) = 6 * a(t-1). As you can see, we actually vastly exceed 482 million rats by the 36th time period. In fact, we get up to 2.7 trillion adult rats.

    Desh1ck Report

    Mel in Georgia
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Rats will inherit the earth!

    Lotekguy
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Not if the cockroaches have anything to say about it! But, then again, cockroaches rarely talk.

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    Tom Brincefield
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    They'll probably not make it to 5,000 if they were anything like the mice in the Universe 25 experiment.

    Andrew Keir
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Charlie Brown says ".... Rats ! "

    Jaya
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Me and my rat army will attack at dawn of December 26th, 2028!

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    #28

    How Fast Should Loki Have Been Falling After 30 Minutes?

    Unusual math problem with numbers and shapes, showcasing a creative approach to solving weird math puzzles.

    Squeaky_Ben:
    Terminal velocity for a falling human is around 200 kilometers per hour. You reach this velocity within the first 30 seconds of the 30 minutes, so the acceleration portion would be negligible. So, around 100 kilometers of falling, give or take a little.

    Kishikishi17 Report

    UnclePanda
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    "Terminal velocity" is a pun with a day job.

    Floeckchen
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Fun fact: some smaller animals like squirrels can almost never reach their terminal velocity through falling

    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Fun fact: Some smaller animals, such as squirrels, will reach terminal velocity in less than 20 feet or so. If a squirrel falls there's a fairly good chance they'll land at terminal velocity.

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    #29

    How Many Packs Of Mentos And Bottle Of 2-Liter Coke Would Be Needed To Launch Into Space?

    Rocket launch pad with a large Mentos and Coca-Cola rocket, illustrating a weird math problem concept.

    james_pic:
    I've seen YouTube videos where they manage to get Mentos and Coke jets about 10m into the air, which would give the jet an exhaust velocity of 14m/s. Wikipedia tells me low earth orbit needs a Δv of about 9.5km/s. Plugging these numbers into the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation gives a wet mass of 2.5 * 10^297 kg.
    The observable universe has a total mass of 1.5 x 10^53 kg.

    th0masm0re Report

    Billo66
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    AI is funny when it's not meant to deceive. That picture is awesome lol

    David Paterson
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Rocketry calculations are fascinating. With diet coke and Mentos it can't be done. With black powder hobby rockets it would take a literal mountain of them to get into space. With a high power multistage hobby rocket you can put a payload of 1 gram into space for a cost of only about $1,000, but to do that needs excruciatingly accurate machining tolerances.

    Lotekguy
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    How many billionaires can we put in the rocket?

    Andrew Keir
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Just tell them there are no taxes on Mars, they';ll put themselves in it

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    Stardust she/her
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I think I could calculate this too, I’m too sleepy to check my notes and do the working though. I’ll do it tomorrow morning

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    #30

    How Long Could A Candle Of This Size Last?

    Giant yellow candle displayed in a store, with a hand showing scale against the candle’s large surface.

    Kionimom1: It really depends on what wax the Candle is made of and how the wick is Placed inside Lets say its paraffin wax and the size of the candle is 1 cubicmeter meaning 1000000 ccm. The density is 0,9 g/ccm. So the candle would be around 900 kg (i have the feeling there is a mistake here). A normal paraffin candle burns about 7,5 grams per hour so it should burn for about 120000 hours or 13.6 years, considering it doesnt heat up too much Also, if the candle is Constantly heating up for hours it burns down a lot faster than lighting it on and extinguish it every half hour. Thats also why you shouldnt keep normal size candles lot for more than 5 hours because the heat can potentially get so Hot nearby stuff Catches fire.

    jackcorrbit , kc_white Report

    Billo66
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I make candles as a hobby. I made one in a jar with 4 wicks and it got so hot all the surrounding wax caught on fire, not just the wicks. Good thing I was watching it, never leave a candle unattended. There was a 15" tower of flame on it. I used very soft soy wax though.

    Lazy Panda 2
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Soy wax is problematic. I've had soy candles split, spill wax everywhere and catch fire. I'll only burn the ones that are in a jar now.

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    Hugo
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If it's a normal candle wick it will melt just a small pool of wax, so we'll end up with a small hole running down though the block -- and the flame may go out before the hole reaches the bottom. The picture shows a much larger wick, proportional to the size of the candle, so it will burn much more than 7.5 g per hour and give off plenty of heat: I wouldn't light it indooors!

    FlamingoPanda
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago

    This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

    https://youtu.be/QzI0axBNV88?si=CeO3C0xrqbXPiG4D Brilliant video of a massive candle. :)

    #31

    How Did They Get To $700mil

    Solar eclipse image shared on social media, illustrating a unique challenge often seen in weird math problems.

    Butterpye:
    Some company estimated employees will take a 20 minute break during their work hours, they figured there would be 84 million workers on that day, and they multiplied the amount of time with the hourly wage for people over 16 and which is like $24 or so dollars and got $694 million.

    transvangelical , OomGielie Report

    digitalin
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There's a problem equating "work break" with "company money lost".

    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Calculating reduced productivity compared to other days is pure math and passes no judgement.

    Lee Gilliland
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Which is why we have laws to tell these idjits they're doing the wrong kind of thinking.

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    #32

    What If All American Parking Lots Are Covered By Solar Panel? How Much It Will Cost And How Much Energy Will Be Generated?

    Parking lot covered with solar panels showing a practical and sustainable energy solution, illustrating weirdest math problem concepts.

    Martensite_Fanclub: I used to work in solar and this question isn't easy to answer - there are just too many variables. Cost and generation are affected by: location, time of year, panel crystallinity, spacing, and many other factors... But if you need a rough estimate, we were able to get about 1.1 MW (or about 1.72 GWh/yr) (or about $2.20 per Watt after tax credits, etc) on a 315-space parking garage roof in the southern Florida region. These were 3,000 monocrystalline panels (more efficient but more expensive) and ofc these were closer to the equator and get more sun so not everywhere would generate as much. Use these numbers per parking space as a rough estimate if you're in a similar latitude and adjust energy generated down by 5-30% if you're staying in the US (although using Solar Map is more accurate. For example, you may get about 12.79 MW/4.37GWh/yr for 800 parking spaces (or the average Walmart parking lot) in south Florida, which is enough to support ~415 homes year-round, which is probably what you really wanted to know.

    abhitooth Report

    Remi (He/Him)
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's not just the energy production, it's keeping the cars in the shade and thus cooler

    David Paterson
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And protecting the cars from hail by making the hailstones hit the solar panels.

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    Rusty
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Wine farmers are beginning to counter the risen temperatures by combining their vineyards with solar power. Keeps the crop cooler and generates power. Thus the initial question is'nt even always valid.

    Tom Brincefield
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Also being used in pastures for animals like sheep. Gives them shade, saves on water & overheating.

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    BK BigFish
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Tens of millions of acres of farmland grow corn distilled into ethanol to burn in car engines. Is that somehow better?

    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If you had EV charging at the car park, this would probably make sense. For about 10 cars in this case, when it's sunny.

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    #33

    How Heavy And How Much Will This Be?

    Man in gray suit excitedly hugging a giant tungsten cube on a colorful game show stage solving weird math problems.

    Nahanoj_Zavizad: Assuming it's approximately 1.5m in each direction, and solid. Tungsten density is 19300 KG per M3 So it would end up weighing about 60-70 Tonnes. carajillu: mtu in metals trading is equivalent to 10kg, not 1000, because it refers to 1000 kg of the brute ore which is around 10kg of pure metal. So, 70 tones is 7000 mtu, which cost in current prices around 330$, which results in 7000*330= 2.310.000$

    duonganh2306 Report

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    #34

    Would This Extend The Range By Any Decent Amount?

    White sports car with a large water container on the roof and a hose, illustrating weirdest math problems solved creatively.

    somehugefrigginguy: I'm not a car guy, but best I can tell that is a 2019 Lamborghini Huracan which gets about 15 miles per gallon. The tank on top looks like a 275 gallon IBC tank, so ignoring aerodynamic effects it would add about 4,125 miles of range. That tank mounted in that orientation adds approximately 13 ft² of frontal cross section plus parasite drag so at highway speeds this could reduce fuel economy by as much as 50%. So if we assume a fuel economy of 7.5 mpg, that tank would add 2,062 miles of range.

    brilliant31508 Report

    Jaya
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Is this how Australians drive from Glendambo to Coober Pedy? 😉

    David Paterson
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Yes, but in a beat up old 4WD ute, not a Huracan.

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    UnclePanda
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There's little reason to carry more fuel than the time it takes to fill your bladder. Most gas tanks (in the US at least) are good for a max of six hours of highway speed.

    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And yet my Landcruiser can do 1,000 miles on one tank....

    David Morgan
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Really? That sounds unlikely. What capacity is the tank? If it's a standard tank size you'd need to be scoring about 70mpg, which is basically not happening, even on a rolling road, let alone with wind resistance etc.

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    Hugo
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Assuming those are US gallons, the tank holds 1040 litres. The consumption of 15.7 litres per 100 km increases to twice as much (!) and the range is increased by 3318 km. I feel it would be better to buy a more economical car instead; these days some use less than 6 litres per 100 km.

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    #35

    Did It Actually Produce That Much Energy?

    Claymation character with shocked expression, illustrating reaction to weirdest math problems being solved quickly.

    Solondthewookiee: No. The design power of Reactor 4 was 3,200 MW. Over 40 years, it would release 4.0e18J, which is 20 times the energy released by Tsar Bomba. Since Chernobyl did not culminate in the largest nuclear explosion in history by an order of magnitude, we can say that the meme is inaccurate. The last reading from the instruments during the accident gave a power reading of over 30,000 MW. The reactor exploded almost immediately after, but it puts us in the ballpark of 10x energy production.

    Rsthegoat Report

    Andrew Keir
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Only an engineer could have written those last two sentences ...

    #36

    Is This Actually True? How Does Someone Even Verify It?

    Strawberry representing weight of electrons storing entire internet, illustrating weirdest math problems solved visually.

    Ok_Programmer_4449: The internet currently stores about 1.4x1024 bits, and it takes about 100,000 electrons to store a bit in an SDRAM, so if all the data on the internet were stored in SDRAM you're talking about 1.4x1029 electrons, or 140 thousand trillion trillion electrons which would weigh about 130 grams. So you're in the right ballpark. It's a few strawberries. But most data on the internet is not stored in SDRAM. Most data is still stored in the alignment of iron atoms on mechanical hard disks. It takes about 20,000 iron atoms to store a bit. So you are talking 2.8x1028 iron atoms, which weighs about 2.6 metric tons, which is about the weight of 52000 strawberries.

    alootikkiprotocol Report

    Chich the witch
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The IT Crowd showed it to be a smallish box :p

    Jake Bertz
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    So you're telling me that with enough time and dedication, I could eat an internets worth of strawberries.

    Freddy M. (He/Him)
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I assume 1024, 1029, and 1028 are meant to be 10^24, 10^29, and 10^28

    R Dennis
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And most of those strawberries are rotten...

    Luke || Kira (he/she)
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    So it'd be THEORETICALLY possible to compress the entire internet into an apple-sized object and, like, send it to the past or launch it to space? (I'm watching Steins;Gate so bear with me)

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    #37

    Are These Numbers Realistic Or Is It Just Nonsense?

    Screenshot of a social media post explaining a math problem about investing to make a child a millionaire over time.

    InfallibleSeaweed: It's a real, albeit optimistic calculation. What this doesn't mention is that nobody knows what $2.8 million will be actually worth in 50 years. It will in pretty much any scenario be worth more then if you had not invested it, but don't expect to be a millionaire by today's standards.

    reddichrist Report

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    #38

    Help Me Settle A Family Debate! How Unfair Was The Slice Of Pie? Was It More Than 25% Of The Pie?

    Pie with a missing slice perfectly measuring one-third of the whole, illustrating a weirdest math problem solution.

    antilopelore:

    I converted the picture you posted into a bitmap to make it simpler. I replaced the remaining cake with white and the part you cut off with black. Then, I simply counted the number of pixels of both colors, giving me the following results: White Pixels: 127,200 Black Pixels: 47,753 Which totals: 174,953 pixels in total. After that, I simply calculated the ratio of the number of black pixels to the total number of pixels. 47,753 / 174,953 Which gives us: 0.2729 This means that what you cut off was 27.29% of the total cake.

    timmyboy87 Report

    Michael Largey
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    How fair or unfair the slicing was depends entirely on how many people wanted some. And how much they each wanted, of course.

    Owen
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's a pie, not a cake.

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    #39

    Why Is It Not 1?

    Math problem asking how many left-handed people must leave a room to change the percentage from 99% to 98%.

    Electronic_Finance34:

    There are 100 people, and 99 are lefties. That means there is 1 right handed person. What would cause the 1 right handed person to double in representation from 1 to 2%? If the one right handed person was in a room with 49 lefties, they would then be 2% of the total. So 50 lefties need to exit the room.

    thehollowsimp Report

    Michael Largey
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    For the doubtful or the algebraically inclined: Solve (99-x)/(100-x) = 0.98

    #40

    How Heavy Will This Be If It's Made Out Of Styrofoam?

    Person dressed in armor carrying an oversized sword outdoors at night, showcasing a weird math problem solution concept.

    gurneyguy101:
    32kg/m3, 5.5m x 0.5m x 1.5m = 3.3m3 —> x 32 = 105kg Hmm, I think it’s fair to say something’s gone wrong here. I reckon the sword is hollow Edit: or the sword is photoshop, in which case it would weigh 0kg

    broautism552 Report

    UKGrandad
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Styrofoam comes in different densities and can be as little as 10kg/M3, so that sword could be just 33kg.

    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Maybe, but you haven't accounted for the torque from the 4 meter lever arm. As a fairly rough figure the roughly 45° angle would put a load of perhaps 80kg on his hand.

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    ️Rando Panda
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It must weigh 0. It doesn't even have enough density to cast a shadow.

    Lotekguy
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That looks like the world's largest dreidel.

    Rick Murray
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If it was hollow, you enter into the maths of "how does this support itself". So probably Photoshop.

    Bob Brooce
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If it was hollow it would still be 3 dimensional and therefore a truss. To be real I'd lean toward Papier-mâché with a frame of chicken wire. Unless it's also fairly thick front to back (as we see it) you'd still need to be careful about orientation when holding it.

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    Lee Gilliland
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago

    This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

    Idiotic question #47.

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    #41

    How Accurate Is This?

    Map showing Florida with rising sea levels flooding coastal areas, illustrating a weird math problem scenario.

    RoadsterTracker:
    That plot is somewhere around 15 meters of seawater rise. Sea level rise is ~7 meters if all of Greenland melts, and Antarctica is around 60 meters. It's pretty unlikely that in a mere 50 years it will be that flooded. Greenland melting will happen eventually given a 3-5 degree C rise in temperature, which seems increasingly likely, but it would take a while. The worst case models right now predict maybe a 4 degree rise in temperature by 2075, and it would still take the ice some time to melt after that.

    americanhero6 Report

    Luke || Kira (he/she)
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    One day, this will be in those "Posts that didn't age well" lists

    Remi (He/Him)
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Arctics are warming faster than the global average though

    TACO Don's Authentic TexMex
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    On the bright side, Mar-a-Lardo would be nothing more than a tacky guilded Atlantis

    David Paterson
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The sea level rise in the 50 years between 2025 and 2075 can't be more than twice the sea level rise between 1975 and 2025. Which averaged 0.1 metres.

    Lotekguy
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The part of the state that votes blue will still be blue - the color of ocean water.

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    #42

    4.7% For All Of Us Public College?

    Screenshot of a Twitter conversation discussing the math behind taxing billionaires to fund free public college.

    ElevationAV: Assuming we're doing a 1 time tax on Bezos' net worth of ~250 Billion, that gives us 11.75 Billion once. Free college in the US is estimated to cost between $28B and $75B per year; Sanders plan estimates at least $48B per year; so no, a 4.7% tax on just Bezos wouldn't even provide half the funding for a single year.

    reddit.com Report

    Luke || Kira (he/she)
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Still we should do that, just for $hits and giggles

    Khavrinen
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Throw in Zuckerberg, Musk, & Gates, though, and we'd be getting close.

    Brian Droste
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Sounds like according to these figures if we taxed all billionaires this tax rate here in the US there would be more than enough money to fund everyone's college for a few years.

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    #43

    How Much Money Could You Make Doing This?

    Cartoon character lying in a pile of money with a Deadpool mask, humorously referencing solving weird math problems.

    u/dr_pickles69: According to some sources, the average cost of a kidney transplant in the United States was around $442,500 in 2020. However, this does not reflect the actual price that a donor would receive, as most of the cost goes to the hospital, the surgeon, the recipient, and other expenses. On the black market, a kidney donor might get anywhere from $1,000 to $200,000, depending on the country and the demand. If we take the average of these figures, we can estimate that a kidney donor on the black market would make about $50,000 per kidney. Therefore, if Deadpool sold 500 of his kidneys, he would make about $25 million.

    Ornery_Perspective54 Report

    Norm Gilmore
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Wouldn't that be 500 cancerous kidneys? His body is in a constant battle against the disease. As soon as a kidney is removed it would lose it's protection?

    BK BigFish
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Or, if the kidney constantly regenerated itself to last forever, it would be worth more than $50,000.

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    mhoulden
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Selling organs is banned in the UK. Section 32 of the Human Tissue Act 2004. He would probably be fined £5000 for the first few and then sent to prison for subsequent ones.

    Tom Brincefield
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    So he doesn't sell them in the UK. Not like their laws are relevant outside of their borders.

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    #44

    What Would Happen? Could We Survive This?

    Man looking confused with caption about Earth's gravity increase, illustrating weirdest math problems solved humorously.

    John12345678991: Well that’s over 10x increase so everything would immediately weigh like 12 times more. Every building would collapse cuz they use factor of safeties of like 2-4. Everyone standing would break most of their bones. If ur just laying on the ground outside u might be ok.

    Upstairs-Ad-4705 Report

    David Paterson
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    One second. Hmm. The shorter the timescale, the more acceleration it is possible to take without breaking. Humans Can generally only survive a sustained 5 g. But for very brief timescales, humans have survived 80 g. The highest recorded acceleration survived by a human was over 200 g. It's much the same for structures. The question asked for 12 g which is unsurvivable for a second, possibly survivable by humans and buildings for 0.1 seconds, and almost certainly survivable by humans and buildings for 0.01 seconds.

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    #45

    Best Way To Do It ?

    Contestants solving a weird math problem on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, choosing the largest number option confidently.

    A: 24*365

    B: 60*60*24

    C: 365*10

    D: 60*24*7

    We see that A > C and B > D. Both A and B contain 24. Lets remove it.

    A': 365 B': 60*60

    B is bigger by one order of magnitude.

    reddit.com Report

    PattonPawter
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    if anyone's confused by the explanation: A is 1560, B is 86,400, C is 3650 and D is 10,080.

    Andrew Keir
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Impressively brief, yet correct, explanation.

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    #46

    What Would Be It's Price If It Had Been A Real Natural Diamond?

    Hand holding a large faceted crystal diamond, illustrating one of the weirdest math problems solved by people.

    Rhuobhe26:
    It would be priceless beyond belief a literal one of a kind in the world eclipsing all other stones. The original Cullinan stone, the largest and possibly most famous of all diamonds was an uncut stone 4 inches long and about 3,100 carats. It is beyond value and was cut into 9 large and 96 smaller stones the largest of which is 530 carats. If the diamond was actually the full 4 inches in size or 100mm, with a deep cut then it would be 4,800 carats. The most expensive diamond ever sold at Auction was the CTF Pink Star, it sold in 2017 by Sotheby's for $71.2 million and was 59.60 carats. Now you can't compare the two, but just using those numbers that's $1.19 million per carat. So between 2,624 to 4,800 carats at the same price...$3.13 billion to $5.73 billion.

    IndividualRoom203 Report

    Billo66
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's a lot for a lump of old carbon.

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    #47

    Is This Accurate?

    Meme comparing gamers' low ping complaints to NASA scientists controlling a rover with extremely high ping solving math problems.

    tutorcontrol: Approximately, yes. Average distance is 12.5 light minutes for a ping of 1.5 million ignoring the electronics. 182 light seconds is the closest recorded position for a ping of 364,000, also as a "mirror bounce". This is why the rover has some longer commands and autonomous capabilities to break the control loop latency problem. So far, nothing with a 100 ms control loop has tried to chase it, and rocks tend to have effective pings around 3 e 12, so 1e7 is pretty good.

    sotobet0509 Report

    Anonymouse
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Of course, the rover is not dodging other gamers shooting at it, and does not require near instantaneous reaction time...

    #48

    Aside The Absurdity Of Having 3 Millions Easily At Your Disposal, Is It Possible To Live Like This?

    Screenshot of a Twitter exchange offering a math-related passive income example involving an 8% Treasury bond calculation.

    Deep-Thought4242: The structure is accurate, the details are wrong. Treasury bonds don't literally pay you monthly. I think those pay twice a year. And the current yields are 4-5% not 8%. But that means you can buy $3 M in T-Bonds and then twice a year, you'll get about 67,000 to spend. ETA: most people with $3M+ portfolios would consider this an unwise use of it, though it is very low risk.

    Vhad42 Report

    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If the actual figure was 8% you would be MUCH better off spending $10,000 a month and reinvesting the other 10k. That way your income would grow in line with, or probably exceeding, inflation. A good rule of thumb is to take HALF of the growth as income and leave the rest to counter inflation. That way your income in real terms remains about the same.

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    #49

    How Much More Would This Cost An Airline?

    Screenshot of a social media post showing a weird math problem solved with an AI-powered flight route map.

    dwaynebathtub: "Normal (dumb) route": 5,650 miles "AI-powered route": 6,340 miles I used distancefromto.net and the Google Maps "Measure distance" tool. Normal route distance is 11% shorter.
    SenorTron: This isn't a calculation, but for anyone wondering what's happening here the curved line is actually straight (following the curve of the Earth) and the straight line would actually be curved in reality.

    brilliant31508 Report

    David Morgan
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    This guy thinks airline route planners (and indeed sea route planners) are so stupid that in centuries of travel, no-one else has thought of this. It could not possibly be because he's overlooking some very obvious things.

    Marnie
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I took it that this guy was just being funny.

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    Hugo
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There's a reason why aircraft usually take a great-circle route. Stretch a piece of string (or elastic) on a globe and you'll see.

    Rusty
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    When one is too stupid to be able to acknowledge their own stupidity….

    Jaya
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I'm pretty sure the original guy was making a joke, and doesn't actually think it's shorter.

    Tom Brincefield
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    He could be a flerfer. They have issues with the great circle routes.

    ArchangelLoki
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Its the rhumb line. Follow the curvature of the Earth

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    #50

    Given That Pi Is Infinitely Long And Doesn't Loop Anywhere, Is There Any Chance Of This Sequence Appearing Somewhere Down The Digits?

    Reddit post showing one thousand digits of pi arranged in numerical order as a weird math problem solution.

    tdammers:
    Yes - if Pi does indeed work the way we think it does, then literally every finite sequence of digits is going to be present in the decimal expansion of Pi somewhere. In fact, there will even be infinitely many occurrences of it. This hinges on Pi being a Normal Number; this has neither been proven nor disproven so far, but most people seem to expect Pi to be normal.

    moskovskiy Report

    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There's an infinite number of monkeys at the door wanting to talk about this script for Hamlet they've worked out....

    Hugo
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    But you'll have to list rather a lot of the digits of pi before you come across that sequence.

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    #51

    Why Wouldn’t This Work?

    Faucet turbine generating electricity from running water to wirelessly charge a smartphone on a kitchen counter.

    nog642: It would work, it would just make the water come out of your faucet a bit slower and wouldn't generate much power. Typical flow rate for a kitchen faucet is 2.2 gallons per minute say. That's 139 grams of water per second. And let's overestimate the velocity and say it's 3 m/s (6.7 mph). Then the kinetic energy of 139 g of water at that speed is 0.63 J, so the max power generated would be 0.63 W (and it would be less because we're overestimating and a turbine can't capture all the energy). A 5 V USB charger drawing 1 A, which is what those really slow basic phone chargers with none of the faster charging capabilities draw, is already using 5 W. So you couldn't even charge a phone on this if you had the water running constantly. Maybe you could charge your phone while you run your bath. But what's the point of that?

    Repulsive-Loan5215 Report

    jkl
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Apartment with free water, only charging for electricity and gas each month. Seriously, I think there may once have been a generator like that for running emergency radios during a power failure. Ecologically, this is a horrible idea. Solar power is much more practical.

    Steven Glemboski
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    At one time chicago had free city water, i once had a faucet mounted fan that ran off the running water, similar idea

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    royal crablets
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Hey, it could save a little money for those of us that want to run both the bath and a toaster at the same time.

    Jaya
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Every society will reinvent the whee.... I mean the watermills 😉

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    #52

    Is This True

    Illustration showing the physics of a sling throw demonstrating concepts from weirdest math problems solved online.

    FriendlySceptic: 9mm Bullet: Mass: ~8 grams (124 grains) Speed: ~350 m/s (varies by load) Kinetic energy: around 490–600 joules Sling projectile (lead or stone): Mass: ~50–100 grams Speed: ~30–60 m/s in skilled hands (some reconstructions reach ~70–100 m/s) Kinetic energy: around 200–500 joules, sometimes higher. Force of the hit is comparable but the damage caused isn’t the same. A bullet’s velocity is much higher, so it causes more penetration and shock trauma, while a slingstone delivers more blunt-force trauma and can still break bones. Sort of like getting poked with a spear vs hit with a mace. Same force in the strike but very different results even though both are potentially lethal.

    DanaNicolee Report

    David Paterson
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Similar to sling in terms of speed and mass. But much pointer.

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    David Paterson
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Yes. Force comes from momentum (mass times velocity) not energy (1/2 times mass times velocity squared). Injuries will be very different.

    #53

    [request] Is That True?

    A math problem involving energy demand uses a lollipop to illustrate uranium's power and waste output.

    PacNWDad: Assuming the diameter of the Dum-Dum is 2 cm, that is about 80 grams of U-235. 80g of uranium will release about 6 x 1012 joules of energy in a fission reaction. The average American uses about 3 x 1011 joules of energy per year for all use (not just home electricity, but transportation, workplace, share of industrial production, etc.). That would mean the uranium can provide about 20 years of an average American’s energy consumption. So, yeah this is in the ballpark, although about 1/4th what would actually be needed for a full 84 years. It would be more like 300g. Note that this is a little misleading, since U-235 is only about 0.7% of naturally occurring uranium. So actually, they would need to process about 42 kg of uranium to get the 300g of U-235.

    AssociationIcy5963 Report

    Lazy Panda 2
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The only waate is assuming it's just the spent fuel. In reality tonnes of low-grade nuclear waste is produced each year from a nuclear power plant. And that volume of waste is more problematic than spent fuel.

    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Yeah, uranium itself isn't particularly useful. It needs to be processed first. That's the expensive bit.

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    #54

    How Big Or Small Would The Room Need To Be For 1 Person To Suffocate Due To This Chain In 24 Hours?

    Huge metal chain links laid out inside a large warehouse with people standing, related to weirdest math problems solving.

    CanoePickLocks: It’s been actually studied. For their simulation of a chain locker with roughly 21:1 air to chain ratio it was 24 hours for [fatal] levels at 23°C and 60 hours at 10°C. For exact information you would need a ton of measurements.

    The_ginger_cow Report

    Lazy Panda 2
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's not required to have an air tank. It is required to ventilate the chain locker, test the atmosphere before entry, and have emergency breathing apparatus on standby in case there are pockets of low oxygen that testing missed. Source. I worked on ships.

    Andrew Keir
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    This effect has caused way too many deaths of untrained staff working in corroded metal tanks. Do not add yourself to the casualty list !

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    David Paterson
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's not possible to accurately calculate the rate of steel rusting from first principles. I've tried. It can only be determined from measurements.

    #55

    How Accurate Is This?

    Man wearing beanie drinking from a cup with text about minimum wage math problems comparing 1970s and today.

    Solondthewookiee: It would depend on the exact year and how they calculate purchasing power. Here's the method I used: Median home price 1970: $17,000 Median home price 2024: $420,000 Minimum wage 1970: $1.45/hr Min wage as a percentage of home price 1970 = 1.45/17000 = 8.53e-5 Multiplying that by 2024 home price: (8.53e-5)(420000) = 35.82. So not $66/hr, but several times the current minimum wage.

    Lurkie2 Report

    ️Rando Panda
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    This only addresses the amount needed to purchase a home. It doesn't address how much you need to make to afford the property taxes, utilities, insurance, and maintenance, such as replacing the roof every 20-30 years, the appliances every ~10-15 years, etc.

    Sally Moen
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    420k for a home in Seattle in 224 would be very, very hard to find. Maybe a condo, but that would include the monthly building maintenance fees on top of property taxes and mortgage.

    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    There was a boom after W22. It's gone back to what it was like before that (although a smaller boom existed after WW1 in the roaring 20s)..unfortunately booms don't continue forever, but the advances in technology and overal wealth have been dramatic.

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    #56

    Is There A Correct Answer?

    Math problem asking the chance of randomly picking the correct answer, illustrating weirdest math problems to solve.

    andrew_calcs: No. It’s a paradox. B is not a fraction of 4 so can never be correct in a 4 element set with discrete correct answers. For C to be correct you would need 2 elements of the set to be 50%, so C cannot be correct. For either A or D to be correct you would need 1 element of the set to be 25%. Since there are two, neither can be correct.

    K4czoRRR Report

    #57

    This Is A Wrong Problem, Right?

    Weird math problem about dogs signed up to compete in a dog show with numbers circled and underlined.

    49 dogs total = number of big dogs + number of small dogs(number of big dogs plus 36) 49 = x + (x+36) which can be rewritten as 49 = 2x + 36 13 = 2x X = 6.5 Can't have half a dog so yeah I'd assume something's off here.

    Sha_ronND Report

    Kelly Scott
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    You have to satisfy two conditions of this equation. 1) the number of total dogs has to be 49. 2) the number of small dogs has to be 36 more than the total of large dogs. And one condition is dependent on the other. Just by setting up the equation for large dogs (36 + x = 49) tells you the number of small dogs is 36 and the number of large dogs is 13. Let's look at this. The number of large dogs can't be 14 because then if the number of small dogs was 36 more than 14, the total number of dogs would be 50 and we were just told the total number of dogs was 49. Likewise, the number of large dogs can't be 12, because then if the number of small dogs was 36 more than the number of large dogs, the total number of dogs would be 48, again contradicting the number of dogs at the show. So the equation for finding the number of large dogs is the total number of dogs minus the number of small dogs, which is 49 - 36 = x, with x being the unknown number of large dogs.

    Kelly Scott
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago

    But again, you're not being asked to find the number of large dogs. You're being asked to find the number of small dogs so even if you set that equation up as 49 - x = 36, with x again representing the number of large dogs, you'd still be using 36 as the number of small dogs. It's a trick question, but not in the way you think. Using the word "more" is throwing people off. Instead of saying in the problem "There are 36 small dogs and we don't know how many large dogs in the show for a total of 49 dogs", they're saying "There are 36 more small dogs than large dogs in the show for a total of 49 dogs". It's the same thing, but it's confusing people because they are asking for the number of small dogs rather than a number for large dogs which is the real unknown here, and the answer for the number of small dogs has already been given.

    Bartlet for world domination
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's not the same thing. 36 is not the number of small dogs. We know small+large=49 and small-large=36. Rewrite the first: small=49-large. Substitute in the second: 49-large-large=36. Or 49-2large=36. So 2large=13 and large=6.5 dogs. So small=49-6.5=42.5 small dogs. You'll see there are 36 more small dogs than large dogs, and the total is 49. We don't talk about the half dogs.

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    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Can't have half a dog, but there's absolutely NO REASON why there cant be 37 more small dogs than large dogs. Or 38, etc. Words used don't specify a absolute number, merely 'at least 36'.

    Kelly Scott
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    No, it SPECIFICALLY states that there are 36 more small dogs than large dogs. No maximum or minimum about the number. And if you work it out, there is only one number that satisfies both conditions of the question: the TOTAL number of dogs has to be 49 and the greater number of small dogs has to be 36 more than the lesser number of large dogs. That makes 13 for the number of large dogs the only possible answer if there are to be 36 more small dogs then large dogs for a total of 49 dogs. People are WAY overcomplicating the problem and the process for solving it.

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    #58

    [request] How Long Would It Take A Teeny Tiny Black Hole, Created On The Surface Of Our Planet, To Destroy Earth?

    Close-up of a hand holding a tiny black bead, illustrating a weird math problem involving small objects and measurements.

    wayoverpaid:

    Cake Sprinkle isn't an official measurement, but I'm gonna pick 1mm for the size since that's my eyeball size of the dot in the picture. That 1mm in this case actually the event horizon. Such a black hole won't decay quickly. The luminosity from it will be under one watt, and the lifetime is on the order of 1047 years. The mass of such a black hole would be roughly 10% the mass of the earth, or about 10x the mass of the moon. That much mass in such a small area would immediately fall towards the core of the earth. So you have to define "destroy the earth" because having the tidal forces of an object 10x the mass of the moon falling through the core would probably create massive damage well before the earth fell into it. As for how long it takes the earth to actually be absorbed, that depends on at what point the destroyed rubble of the earth orbiting the black hole no longer counts as the earth. A hypothetical tunnel through the earth would take under an hour to fall through and out the other side. So likely by the time an hour has passed the planet is no longer stable. How long it takes every last bit of earth matter to fall into the black hole is a physical simulation I lack the power to do, but by the time you're talking about accretion disks, the Earth is pretty destroyed.

    Mvian123 Report

    Remi (He/Him)
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Note to self don't use black holes as sprinkles

    Andrew Keir
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    ... bacause they will add to your weight !

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    Marnie
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I read a science fiction book in high school about scientists creating a teeny black hole, which then got loose and started orbiting around and threatened to destroy the earth. I don't remember how it ended, but it scared me like no horror book that I had ever read. Thanks for bringing back good memories, BP! ;-)

    Tom Brincefield
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Sounds like part of the novel Earth by David Brin.

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    #59

    Approximately How Large Was The Font Size Before And After?

    Screenshot of a social media post sharing a funny math problem involving reducing a 30-page report to 22 pages by font size change.

    Gnochi:
    With the same sequence of characters and font, you can assume that the number of pages scales with the inverse square of the font size, since characters per row and rows per page both scale inversely with font size, with a scaling factor K depending on frequency of character use and the font character lengths and kerning. Set F as the original font size, and F-2 as the new font size. K / F2 is the number of characters per page in the original, so with 30 pages we have 30 x K / F2 characters. By that same logic, 22 x K / (F-2)2 is the same number of characters. Thus: 30 x K / F2 = 22 x K / (F-2)2 22 x F2 = 30 x (F-2)2 22F2 = 30F2 - 120F + 120 8F2 - 120F +120 = 0 F2 - 15F + 15 = 0 F = (15 +/- sqrt(225 - 60))/2 F = ~1 or ~14, meaning F-2 = -1 or 12 The original document was font size 14, and it was shrunk to font size 12.

    oochiiehehe3 Report

    Janissary35680
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I actually got away with something like this a couple of times before clients wised up and realized that "page" doesn't mean anything in electronic publishing unless it's clearly defined.

    ️Rando Panda
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    You can also shorten the space between paragraphs and slightly change the margins. Not really noticeable and saves space. But I don't think this is the point that was being made.

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    #60

    How Much Weight Would The Boat Need To Have To Make This Possible?

    Underwater image of two people carrying a canoe and a scene from a movie, illustrating weird math problem solutions.

    Pretentious-Polymath:
    Exactly enough so that it would sink when trying to use it the regular boating way. The buoancy in that setup is mass of displaced water minus mass of the boat. Volumes for boats can differ, but this should be around 2500 litres, so 2.5 tons of weight to stay underwater like that.

    zaiguai047 Report

    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's called "Willing suspension of disbelief". Blackadder: "I don't want anyone staring at my willie suspension in disbelief!"

    Owen
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And I thought it was a documentary all this time. 😐

    David Paterson
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    "Exactly enough". No, less than that because the edges of the boat are underwater. Just rock the boat enough to let enough water inside to make the buoyancy less.

    #61

    What Is The Area Of This Shape If The Side Length Is 4?

    Diagram humorously illustrating an unusual shape described as a square in weird math problems solved by people.

    HAL9001-96: well first lets figure out what the shape is exactly then the rest is pretty easy more specifically what its proportions are if we take the angle of the extension in radians a, the radisu of the inner circle r and the sidelength l we know l=(2Pi-a)*r and l=a*(r+l) so a=l/(r+l) so l=(2Pi-l/(r+l))*r l=2Pir-lr/(r+l) lets set l=1 for now so 1=2Pir-r/(r+1) 1=(2Pir²+2Pir-r)/(r+1) 2Pir²+2Pir-r=r+1 2Pir²+2(Pi-1)r-1=0 quadratic equation solves to (1+root(1+Pi²)-Pi)/2Pi or about 0.1838742 whole thing scales proportionally so r=0.1838742l and a=1/1.1838742=0.844684 so total area is (0.1838742l)²*Pi*(2Pi-0.844684)/(2Pi)+(1.1838742l)²*0.844684Pi/(2Pi) or about 0.68387l² if l=4 that makes about 10.94

    ZealousidealTie8142 Report

    David Morgan
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    OK, this was believeable, right up to the word 'easy'. After that, not so much /s

    Mike Beck
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Gotta be pedantic. They aren't four right angles here. There's are two 90's and two 270's.

    Andrew Keir
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    doesn't say that. What's NOT said can be more important than what IS said. Ask any lawyer.

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    #62

    Will This Work In Real Life?

    Diagram showing a big explosion facing really thick steel with a 1 mm gap and a watermelon cut in half, weird math problem illustration.

    ledocteur7: Short answer : yes, but it's more of like localised shredding than a clean cut.

    Long answer : any sufficiently large amount of pressure can destroy stuff, no matter the fluid used, hydraulic leaks in industrial machinery are incredibly dangerous, and when moving fast enough, air acts basically the same way as any liquid. But air is very light, even when heavily compressed, and will get redirected in contact with pretty much anything, so rather than getting a clean slice, you're literally blowing things apart until they are in 2 pieces.

    Makoto_Kurume Report

    Hugo
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I can think of simpler and cheaper ways to cut a melon.

    David Paterson
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's correct. Surprisingly, it depends on the thickness of the "really thick steel". For steel a metre thick of so, the airflow in the gap becomes laminar and the cut is clean. Most thick steel is more like 0.05 metres thick and the flow is turbulent so spreads in vee shape at the end of the crevice and pulverises the centre of the watermelon rather than cutting it cleanly.

    #63

    How To Mathematically Proof That 3 Is A Smaller Number Than 10

    Math problem asking to circle the smallest number with 10 circled instead of 3 and a rainbow drawing as explanation.

    (Not sure if this is the altitude of this sub or if it's too abstract so I better go on to another.)
    Saw the post in the pic, smiled and wanted to go on, but suddenly I thought about the second part of the question.
    I could come up with a popular explanation like "If I have 3 cookies, I can give fewer friends one than if I have 10 cookies". Or "I can eat longer a cookie a day with ten."
    But all this explanation rely on the given/ teached/felt knowledge that 3 friends are less than 10 or 10 days are longer than 3.
    How would you proof that 3 is smaller than 10 and vice versa?

    PreguicaMan: Start from:
    A number is smaller than it's successor (aBeing smaller is a transitive property (if a < b and b < c, then a < c ) 
     Than we get: 
    3 < s(3) 
    3 < 4 < 5 < ... < 10 
    3 < 10

    Molvaeth Report

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    #64

    How Many Ways Are There To Shuffle A Deck?

    Tweet discussing a math fact about shuffling cards for the first time, relevant to weirdest math problems solved.

    52!

    8.0658175170943900791e+67

    52 cards, the first card in the deck can be any of the 52, the second can be any of the remaining 51 and so on. That is 52!

    iFreaK72 Report

    Michael Largey
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The statement is not absolutely guaranteed to be true, but that's how to bet your money.

    Freddy M. (He/Him)
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It depends on what you count as "shuffling". Shuffling isn't perfectly random, and many decks will be in the same configuration when bought or after being sorted, increasing the chances of duplicate decks. Then you could also consider a cheated shuffle, which will also make more consistancy and greater chances of repeats

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    Andrew Keir
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I make that = 8 x 10^67. That's about the number of atoms AI estimates to be in the Milky Way galaxy - our 'home' galaxy. It's a lot.

    #65

    Which One Is Correct? Comments Were Pretty Much Divided

    Weird math problem showing a scale with two 100 N weights and a question about the correct reading value.

    I-am-the-Vern: If I imagine myself holding the scale from the ring end, I’d have to pull 100N to get the left weight suspended. If I replace my 100N exertion with a 100N counterweight, the scale won’t recognize the difference. That’s as simple as I can figure it.

    mymodded Report

    Stardust she/her
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I think it should read 100N but it’s kind of late at night so I’m probably not thinking straight though they did ask this question a few years ago in a national engineering exam

    Hugo
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    In practice spring balances read in kgf, so it would show 10.2.

    Andrew Keir
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I've never seen a spring balance in kgf but I suppose there might be one, somewhere ...

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    #66

    Wouldn’t You Just Stop At The Core Due To The Earths Gravity?

    A large hole dug in the ground illustrating a weird math problem about drilling through the Earth and time to reach the other side.

    Terra_B:
    No you will: Max out velocity only about 200km Probably hit a wall due to corolis effect / orbital mechanics Actually in the middle of the earth would be little gravity as there is equally as much mass above as below you

    prbecker Report

    Kelly Scott
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    How are you going to go through a molten core?

    Janissary35680
    Community Member
    Premium
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    "That is left as an exercise for the reader."

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    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Ignoring the (sensible) effects of corolis, and assuming a vacuum so no resistance, and the fact that the Earth is actually liquid, you definitely would go through to the other side. You'd 'stop' at the other end, and start falling back, just like a thrown ball. Absolutely no idea of the speed, however, that's ridiculously complex because you're inside the object pulling you to the centre!

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    #67

    I Got 76, My Friend Got 80. Who Is Right?

    Geometric math problem showing a complex diamond shape with multiple triangles to count for puzzle solving.

    CoolStuffSlickStuff:

    84. There are 4 tiers on each side, each tier having 10 triangles. So that's 80. Then there are 4 wide triangles that span the left and right sides.

    blenls Report

    Mike Beck
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I found all 84 but dang that was rough.

    Andrew Keir
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I can only find 76 - but my brain is hurting...

    Stardust she/her
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    F**k, I had a math problem like this a while back. If I only could remember what I studied in P&C last week

    #68

    What Would Be The Answer?

    A weird math problem challenging viewers to crack a 3-digit code using logical hints and number placement clues.

    unatleticodemadrid:

    It’s 042. Hint 4 rules out 7, 3, and 8. Hint 5 gives you that 0 is part of the code but is in position 1 or 2. Hint 3 tells you that 0 has to be in position 1 and another number is right so it’s 0x2, 02x, 0x6, or 06x. Using clues 1 and 2, you can deduce that 6 can be ruled out too since it doesn’t change position but it’s positioned right in clue 1 but wrong in clue 2. That’s impossible. So it’s only 0x2 or 02x. 8 has already been ruled out from hint 4, so that leaves 0x2 as the only possibility. Finally, from clue 2, we get 042.

    g6ld Report

    WFH Forever
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It must be as it is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything - Deep Thought

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    #69

    Street Hourly Capacity

    Comparison of car-oriented vs multimodal street capacity showing math problem solving with people and vehicles per hour.

    VincentGrinn: the numbers are more or less right, 6k for busses per hour per lane is abit higher than i normally see but not by much
    a lane of car traffic can move about 1,500 people per hour per lane, but traffic lights limit that significantly, 1100 might be an overestimate
    walking is particularly hard to work out, some things ive seen say 15,000 per hour in a 3.5m wide space, but its rare to have so many people walking anyway
    good street design definitely is just a matter of maths though

    Bathroom_Spiritual Report

    Hugo
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Now we just have to persuade two thirds of the population to leave their cars at home and cycle or take the bus instead. I vote we increase the tax on motor fuel tenfold and make public transport free. It might even save the planet.

    Brian Droste
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Disagree with the last part of this statement because I live in a very small community and I have to drive a distance to get anywhere distance to do anything major like to do grocery shopping. Many other people live in small communities like me so this would affect them also. Not only that the price of everything else would go up to compensate for the higher taxes on gas. It is hard enough to live today with the prices are right now.

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    MotorcycleDoggo
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    we have these 'wonder' roads where I live. Bus traffic, maybe 500 people per hour, cyclists? Maybe 4. Pedestirans, less than 60 for sure.

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    #70

    Did I Do It Right?

    A math problem circled in black asking how many grams of water are in 18 grams of water, weird math problems.

    Kees_Fratsen: 18 grams of -whatever- is always 18 grams

    rathat11 Report

    Jaya
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Teacher probably wanted to know moles or something per gram, but accidentally wrote grams twice. Teachers are human after all. It did make me laugh though

    Stardust she/her
    Community Member
    Premium
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Were they asking for moles, molecules, litres etc but got confused with grams? Which d******d asked this question?

    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I tried extremely hard, but I can't make it more then 18 even by twisting semantics...

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    #71

    Why Wouldn't This Work?

    A diagram showing a circle and squares removing corners while keeping perimeter 4, illustrating a weird math problem.

    kirihara_hibiki: Basically, it is true that the Limiting Shape of the curve really is a circle, and that the Limit of the Length of the curve really is 4. However, the Limit of the Length of the curve ≠ the Length of the Limiting Shape of the curve . There is in fact no reason to assume that. Thus the 4 in the false proof is in fact a completely different concept than π.

    C0rnMeal Report

    Michael Largey
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    However, it is an excellent proof that pi is less than 4, should one ever be needed.

    #72

    What Would Be The Volume Of 60,000,000 Pennies?

    Twitter math problem asking to choose between $60,000 in cash or $600,000 in pennies, with users solving the weird math problem.

    roge-: At 0.349 cm3 per penny, 60 million pennies would have an aggregate volume of 20.94 million cubic centimeters or 20,940 liters. As for how large of a container you would need to fit all of those pennies, its capacity would have to be greater than that, since discs won't pack perfectly.

    nycguy12392 Report

    David Morgan
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Every part of that initial question and answer was stupid. This is NOT like the 'which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead' question. This is 'do you want 10x the money or not'. The ONLY way this makes sense is if it was supposed to be 'do you want 600x $1 coins, or 60,000x pennies'. Otherwise, HOW the value is made available is irrelevant, one is 10x the other.

    Philip Cutler
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    it says $600,000 in pennies which is over half a million dollars, if it said 600,000 pennies then it would be only $6,000. I would take the pennies and even with the 10% to convert at a coin star machine, i would do that.

    royal crablets
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If it were 600,000 pennies I'd still take that, put most of them in a sock, and just use it to get the $60k.

    Brian Droste
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Now my question would be, if you took a large container and stack all those pennies in that container neatly or just randomly threw those pennies in the large container, would you need a larger container for the neatly stack pennies, or would you need a larger container for the randomly tossed pennies?

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    #73

    Is This Even Possible? How?

    Weirdest math problem showing 7 identical balls and a scale to find the heavier ball in 2 attempts.

    Angzt: Since the image shows 8 balls, I'm guessing it's the 8th that's also identical looking but actually heavier. To solve: Take two sets of three balls and weigh them against each other. Option 1: One side is heavier. Then pick two of the heavier side's balls to weigh against each other. Option 1.1: One ball is heavier. That's your pick. Option 1.2: Both balls weigh the same. Then the third one from the previous heavier set is the heavier one. Option 2: Both sets of three weigh the same. Then you weigh the remaining 2 against each other. One of them will be heavier and that's your pick. Oddly enough, you could do the same thing with 9 total balls and it would still work. The first weighing tells you which set of 3 has the heavier ball. Then you weigh two of those against each other and learn which one it is exactly.

    Difficult_Boot7378 Report

    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The trick is really just that you separate into 3 sets, only 2 of which need to have identical numbers of items. In this way you identify one of three groups that contain the heavier item, instead of merely measuring half at a time (ie 2 groups). This makes it more efficient.

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    #74

    What's The Correct Answer?

    Young man solving weirdest math problems in an interview asking which number is bigger pi powers comparison

    mdroidd:
    3.14^pi is slightly bigger than pi^3.14. It is tempting to generalise that to "higher power beats the higher base". However, numbers smaller than 2.718 (Euler's number) have the opposite effect. So in general, x^(x+dx) > (x+dx)^x when x > e. Proof: x^(x+dx) = (x+dx)^x Rewrite to: x^dx = ((x+dx)/x)^x Take logarithm of both sides: dx ln(x) = x ln(1+dx/x) Expand the right-hand side for small dx: dx ln(x) = dx ln(x) = 1 --> x = e

    eleniussilancius Report

    Andrew Keir
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    D**n, I never tested for Euler's limit ...

    #75

    How Accurate Is This?

    Colossal obsidian sphere concept in San Francisco Bay illustrating weirdest math problems solved with humor and scale.

    bassplaya13:
    The defense budget is like $1 trillion. So 2% if that is $20 Billion. We have no idea how to construct such a large obsidian sphere, especially in the Sam Francisco bay. Obsidian is like $25 a kilogram, I’m gonna roughly guess that thing is 3km in diameter, which gives us 14.13 cubic kilometers or 14.13E+9 cubic meters. At 2250 kg/m3, that’s 31.8E+12 kg or 794 trillion dollars worth of obsidian. So it’s not even close from that standpoint.

    daniel0hodges Report

    Luke || Kira (he/she)
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    But still, an obsidian sphere of any size would be a better investment than a bunch of USian stormtroopers

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    #76

    To What Extent Can Black Garbage Bags Actually Heat Up A Pool?

    Pool covered with garbage bags to heat water from 72 to 80 degrees, a creative solution among weirdest math problems solved.

    dietervdw:
    Apparently the sun outputs about 1kW per square meter. Assuming the bag captures all of that and converts it into heat, that can heat a cubic meter of water 0,86 degrees Celsius per hour, or about 1.5F/hour. So seems plausible.

    butt_pipette Report

    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I have done similar with my pool. A black pipe leading from the output, round a concrete deck, and back in. Pool guy was impressed at the temperature increase. Another 'redneck' pool heater I used was a pipe leading to a copper coil in a firepit. Worked fine. I was going to to pump water to my shed roof through black sheets, but the cost of pumping is actually MORE than the cost of running a heat pump, so used a heat pump. Used all 3 and had warm (28C) water all winter in the tropics as low as 16C ambience in the daytime but sunny.

    Hugo
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    We can probably take 1 kW/m² on an area perpendicular to the rays of the sun. But only within the tropics is the sun directly overhead. The plastic bags will get warmer but lose some of their heat to the atmosphere by convection and radiation. The calculation is over-optimistic.

    #77

    Is It Possible In Any Way To Either Prove Or Disprove It?

    Man sitting at outdoor table with sign challenging math problem about division and numbers, weirdest math problems theme.

    Nerves_Of_Silicon:

    Proof by contradiction: *IF* 0/0 = 1. Then 2 * 0/0 = 2 * 1 On the left we can apply the 2 to the numerator (2 * a/b = 2a/b) so (2 * 0)/0 which equals 0/0. On the right 2 * 1 = 2. And that gives us 0/0 = 2 But we already said 0/0 =1 So now we have the result 1 = 2. Which is impossible. Therefore our original assumption must be wrong. And 0/0 does *not* = 1. By following the same logic, 0/0 can't have *any* definite value. Or else all of the maths we use immediately breaks down. So it doesn't.

    Sorry_Dress9977 Report

    Michael Largey
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Proof by definition. Definition 1: To divide by a number is to multiply by its reciprocal. Definition 2: The product of a number and its reciprocal always equals 1. Multiplication by 0 always yields 0, never 1, so 0 has no reciprocal. Therefore you can't divide by zero and why we say "Division by 0 is undefined".

    Kelly Scott
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Well, how about this in a no-zero number system: We know that .5 is 5/10 and we know that .3 is 3/10. So let's go to a base 12 number system with no zero and using T for twelve. Say that .6 is 6/T and .3 would be 3/T. With me so far? So doing this, we could extrapolate that all the numbers from .1 to .V (eleven) could be represented by 1/T to V/T. So what happens when we get to T? Well, we now have .T or we can say we have T/T which also equals 1. But if that's the case, then .T also =1 . And by further extrapolations, we have 1.T = 2, 2.T = 3, etc. Can we prove this? I don't know, but we can use this. Let's prove in a base twelve system that 1/2 is .6. Let's divide 1 by 2. We can't make 1 be a ten (besides that's a base 10 system) but we can change 1 into .T (see above). Now we have 2 going into .T (which is 2 going into 12) and we get .6 as an answer, which is 6/T which can be reduced to 1/2. So we know this works and I call these changeable numbers "walking numbers".

    Kelly Scott
    Community Member
    2 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    By the way, now I'm working on negative zeroes.

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    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    And any number divided by zero is infinity. Basically our understanding of mathematics does not cover this situation. As with infinity, zero (as something and not just as an absence of anything) isn't always a sensible concept in mathematics.

    Michael Largey
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago (edited) Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    A number divided by zero tends toward infinity. (Infinity is a direction, not a number.) If y = 1/x, y gets very large as x gets very small. If you have one pizza, the smaller the slices you divide it into, the more people you can feed. (But don't expect them to come back to your next party.)

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    #78

    What Is The Odds That This Has Happend In Human History?

    Screenshot of a math-related Reddit post about the quantum tunneling probability when slapping a table.

    MartinGallois:
    The odds are so small that if everyone on earth was slapping a table every second since the beginning of civilization, the odds would still be almost zero.

    YTKaan22 Report

    Spark
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Humans.... Ha! Schrödinger's cat already did it! :D 😺

    azubi
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The chance may be small, but it's there. The worrying part is that the chance your hand will pass halfway and get stuck must be way bigger.

    Zig Zag Wanderer
    Community Member
    3 weeks ago Created by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I worked out that it was possible when I was about 11. Obviously I couldn't know the chances, but I knew it was non-zero.