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Math Teacher Fail

Oct 6, 2010

Something about mathematics, for a change. I was browsing in Reddit when I encountered this submission:

For my amusement, can you tell me why the teacher’s solution is wrong?

from → Math
One Comment leave one →
  1. bugsbane permalink
    Oct 7, 2010 2:22 am

    Good God. are you serious? The act of saw-ing creates a cut. 1 cut = 2 pieces. to create 3 pieces you need 2 cuts. now… it could be that to create 4 pieces also requires 2 cuts since you can place the board one on top of the other. 1 cut = 10 minutes. 2 cuts = 20 minutes.

    But really, Tina, you should be challenging your flock with stuff like this:

    “A hundred prisoners are gathered together by their warden. Each prisoner gets two gloves: one black and one white. They are told that they have one night in order to plan a strategy, after which no communication between them will be possible. In the morning, they are told, each prisoner will have a distinct real number painted on his forehead. Each prisoner will be able to see the numbers painted on all other prisoners, but not his own. What each prisoner needs to do is to decide which glove to put on which hand. Once all prisoners have donned all gloves, they will be placed in a long line, one beside the other, ordered according to the value of the number on their foreheads, and will be asked to hold hands. If the pairs of hands holding each other all have same-colored gloves, all 100 prisoners will be set free.
    Your goal is to design a strategy that will maximize the probability of this happening.”

    Ha!

    Reply

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