6 year olds in China can solve this puzzle in 20 seconds. After 20 minutes I gave up.

[claig]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3127520/Are-smarter-Hong-Kong-grader-Logic-puzzle-Chinese-primary-school-exam-stumps-adults-6-year-olds-crack-just-20-seconds.html

I've heard about teenage whizzkids from Oxbridge who work as interns for the Labour Party . But 6 year olds outwitting adults across the planet? What on earth is gong on?

Yes sorry claig it's really obvious!

Perhaps you should also consider your tendency to overcomplicate a situation when considering your endlessly-referenced obsession with the relationship between the Labour party and Oxbridge graduates?

'We're lacking the lateral thinking gene'

LaCerbiatta, yes, but we are quick learners. Now we know the trick, we won't be fooled again.

Oh I got this straight away.
This time anyway.
The first time I saw it I had to google it to get the answer

I got it in a few seconds.

Although had you asked me when I first saw it on Facebook a few months ago I couldn't do it and had to read the comments to figure it out.

I'm not a logically minded person though :o

'Perhaps you should also consider your tendency to overcomplicate a situation when considering your endlessly-referenced obsession with the relationship between the Labour party and Oxbridge graduates?'

Are you saying I may have got that wrong too? Will I have to start all over again and abandon everything I learned and thought was true? I've heard of quantum reality and parallel universes, but this shakes the foundations of logic itself.

I blame the last 9 months of 11+ training for DD. Gave up first time I looked at it this morning on the phone and then got it within seconds of looking at it on monitor!

Er yeah, that was easy.

Seconds here.

But I think I have seen it before.

And got it straight away then as well

Got it in a second. I feel smart :)

Might show that to the kids at work and see how they do!
I think people do tend to overcomplicate things though, expecting it to be hard so look for a 'hard' method

The giveaway, surely, is the "06". Other than when numbering runways or handsome secret agents, how often are leading zeros used? Indeed, in several programming languages they're sufficiently unusual as to mean something else (work out why 3 x 3 x 3 = 033).

Took me 1 second. But then I can read upside down really easily. And back to front.

I've seen it before and it did take me a little while but probably not more than 20 seconds.

The thing is, it isn't a fair question because when it's turned the other way up, the '8's are wrong - they are done with the big circle on top, which makes you see them as being the correct way up in the first image.

iyswim?

They should have made the 8s horizontally symmetrical.

"work out why 3 x 3 x 3 = 033"

Is this more New Labour style maths? Does this come from the Gordon Brown "end to boom and bust" speech? Is this from the Ed Balls economic plan? What is the answer? I have exhausted an entire pad and spent many minutes doing long division and am no nearer to the solution.

'They should have made the 8s horizontally symmetrical.'

Absolutely. That is why I thought they had got it wrong and dismissed the correct solution.

3x3x3 = 033 is in a different base from normal (decimal) - I think it's base 8, because it would be 3x8 plus 3x1 = 27 but I don't know why there would be a 0 in front.

Or it's something completely different because I'm thinking in maths rather than computing.

3x3x3 = 003 Is how to solve a Rubik's cube

I didn't get it immediately, and I usually do get lateral thinking puzzles. Good one! :)

I got it straight away, but that's probably because I'm a simple soul.

Yes, got it straight away.

Not like you to mention teenage whizz kids assisting the Labour Party, Claig!

sassy, I've heard it mentioned by other people and seen it in print. I think it is the first time I have mentioned it.

It's become common in programming languages which technically or spiritually trace back to C and its precursors to indeed, as ThumbWitch says, use a leading "0" to mean "this number is in octal (base 8)". It catches people out, because that numbers starting with "0x" are in hexadecimal (base 16) is well known and widely used, while these days there are fewer reasons to use octal constants.

Bloody hell, DH got that in approximately 3 seconds!

I didn't get it at all. Will show my 5 year old dd in the morning.

Didn't get it at all

Have a Masters

It's nothing to do with my type of intelligence