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 :)

  • Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    I feel like if a blog post presents 2 options and labels one as the "scientific" one... And it is a deserved Label. Then there is probably a easy case to be made that we should teach children how to understand scientific papers and solve the equation in it themselves.

    Honestly I feel like it reads better too but that is just me

    • wischi@programming.dev
      hexagon
      ·
      8 months ago

      I'm not sure if I'd call it the "scientific" one. I'd actually say that the weak juxtaposition is just the simple one schools use because they don't want to confuse everyone. Scientist actually use both and make sure to prevent ambiguity. IMHO the main takeaway is that there is no consensus and one has to be careful to not write ambiguous expressions.

      • Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de
        ·
        8 months ago

        I mean the blog post says

        "If you are a student at university, a scientist, engineer, or mathematician you should really try to ask the original author what they meant because strong juxtaposition is pretty common in academic circles, especially if variables are involved like in $a/bc$ instead of numbers."

        It doesn't say scientific but...