Anyone up for solving this puzzle?

[summeriscomingsoon]

A gold star for a correct answer



28??

Thanks for that @PhillipPhillop. I seem to recall someone in a previous discussion remembering it from the 70s, so fascinating to hear how its origins go back before that.

If you do calculations in spreadsheets or programs then you put brackets in, to stop all this kind of mathematical ambiguity.

What is the correct answer?

@ninja

Oops 10 - didn't spot the multiply

2 + 1 + (1x7]

⭐️

It’s 25

@bongsuhan

OP, how do you know the correct answer? Is this out if a book or something with an answer included? What's the 'official' solution provided?

As many posters have pointed out, your answer depends on certain assumptions, the riddle does not have a single, definitive solution.

It just is

Don't question it, just accept

@Forevernamechange12333333

It’s 25

See message below

@Matrottinetteelectrique

If you do calculations in spreadsheets or programs then you put brackets in, to stop all this kind of mathematical ambiguity.

But if you know the rules of operator precedence that spreadsheets use, there is no ambiguity and you can omit superfluous brackets.

I don't get it. There are no brackets. Do you imagine brackets around the final numbers if there are none elsewhere? I swear we were not taught BODMAS, BIDMAS or anything like it in our dodgy comp in the 1970s

11

You should have put a trigger warning on this thread @summeriscomingsoon

70

sorry 10 - coudln’t count.

They all do this irritating ‘fiddling with something in the picture to catch you out’

I mean the real answer is - we don’t have enough information to work but that’d be the answer going by assumption

@DadDadDad - how can they be superfluous if they are only presumed by people who already know the rules of operator precedence. Surely that's ambiguous. And I don't just say this because I got it wrong. Twice.

ah silly me I just noticed the difference in the pictures. Very sneeky. I thought I was right with 25.

Ok so :
1 banana: 1
clock at 2 o'clock: 2
number chocolate chips on cookie: 7

2+1+1x7=10

@MimiDaisy11

ah silly me I just noticed the difference in the pictures. Very sneeky. I thought I was right with 25.

Ok so :
1 banana: 1
clock at 2 o'clock: 2
number chocolate chips on cookie: 7

2+1+1x7=10

⭐️

25

70

35

Actually40

28

10

14

35