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

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

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

  • wischi@programming.devOP
    1·
    11 months ago

    Chat GPT’s answer for me:

    Certainly! The expression 6/2(1+2) is ambiguous due to the implicit multiplication. Let’s solve it in both ways:

    1. Implicit multiplication with higher priority:

    [ \frac{6}{2}(1+2) ]

    First, solve the parentheses:

    [ \frac{6}{2}(3) ]

    Now, perform the division:

    [ 3 \times 3 = 9 ]

    1. Implicit multiplication with the same priority as division:

    [ \frac{6}{2(1+2)} ]

    Again, solve the parentheses:

    [ \frac{6}{2(3)} ]

    Now, perform the multiplication first:

    [ \frac{6}{6} = 1 ]

    So, depending on the interpretation of implicit multiplication, you can get different results: 9 or 1.

    I think it’s funny that ChatGPT figured out 1 and 9 but has the steps completely backwards. First it points out what has high priority and then does the exact opposite, both times 🤣