Floating around the interweb

Algebra Level 3

1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 × 0 + 1 + 1 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 \times 0 + 1 + 1

1 + 1 + 1 × 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 1 + 1 + 1 \times 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1

1 + 1 × 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 = ? 1 + 1 \times 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 = ?

3 34 9 4 16 42

Brian Charlesworth by Brian Charlesworth , 55, Canada

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

1 solution

The first two lines are distractions; the only equation is in the bottom line, which, after applying PEDMAS, comes out to 1 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4 . 1 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 = \boxed{4}.

I would not be surprised if this question gets flagged, but it is, after all, a troll. :P

3 Helpful 0 Interesting 0 Brilliant 0 Confused

That's cruel.

Raghav Vaidyanathan - 6 years, 1 month ago

Log in to reply

Yeah, sorry. :( I got fooled by it too when I first saw it, so I thought it was worth sharing here on Brilliant.

Brian Charlesworth - 6 years, 1 month ago

Log in to reply

The options were also smartly calculated!

Pranjal Jain - 6 years, 1 month ago

Log in to reply

@Pranjal Jain – Haha. Thanks. I could see a way to get all of them except 42, which I just threw in as an option because it's the "Hitchhiker's Guide" answer to Everything. :)

Brian Charlesworth - 6 years, 1 month ago

Log in to reply

@Brian Charlesworth – I took a good 3 minutes to solve this. Wondering what tricks lied beneath this problems innocent surface.

Also, what's rule 42? Prasun told me about but didn't really explain.

Trevor Arashiro - 6 years, 1 month ago

Log in to reply

@Trevor Arashiro – Congrats on seeing through the trickery. :) As for 42, there is rule 42, which is to always bring a towel, which evolved from Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Apparently the most useful thing any interstellar traveler can carry is a towel. Yeah, I know. Anyway, there is also a reference in this four-part trilogy to the significance of the number 42, which is what I'm after. To quote the Hitchhiker wiki:

"42 is the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. This Answer was first calculated by the supercomputer Deep Thought after seven and a half million years of thought. This shocking answer resulted in the construction of an even larger supercomputer, named Earth, which was tasked with determining what the question was in the first place."

Pop culture has entwined this special number and towels into rule 42. :P

Brian Charlesworth - 6 years, 1 month ago

@Trevor Arashiro – You may also type "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything" on Google (without quotes).

Pranjal Jain - 6 years, 1 month ago

If you put the 1's at the line breaks together you get 11's. So I got 34. Lol this problem totally sucks.

James Wilson - 3 years, 8 months ago

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...