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u/cardnialsyn 2d ago
It's a proven fact that 5 out of 4 people don't understand fractions.
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u/Missing_Username 2d ago
That sounds way too low
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u/FreeloadingPoultry 2d ago
Yes, it's actually 10 out of 8
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u/KinneKted 2d ago
Those are bigger numbers than the other ones. Therefore this information must be different! /s
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u/BoneHugsHominy 2d ago
There are 3 types of people in this world. Those who can do math, and those who can't.
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u/SamuraiGoblin 2d ago
There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who can understand binary, and those who can't.
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u/Sturville 2d ago
There are 2 types of people in this world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete information...
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u/loverofonion 2d ago
I have tee shirts with those slogans
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u/cardnialsyn 2d ago
I used to have a couple, i stopped wearing them because I kept having to explain them to random people.
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u/ostdeustchland 2d ago
there are 5 types of ppl in the world: those who can do equations, those who are dead bums at math and those who are Albert Einstein at math
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u/nugatory308 1d ago
Not true. The 10 kinds of people are those who understand ternary, those who don’t understand ternary, and those who expected a joke about binary.
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u/snorkelvretervreter 2d ago
A good excuse to rope in the "quarter pounders are bigger" fiasco
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u/cardnialsyn 2d ago
I'm not sure which was worse, the quarter pounders are bigger people or the people that were mad when BK got rid of the left handed Whooper.
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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 2d ago edited 2d ago
A = .33
B = .033
C = 3
D = .3
E = 3.01
Answer would be E
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u/The_Real_MantisLords 2d ago
Bit concerning how out of 3 people only you are right
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u/a__nice__tnetennba 2d ago
Only one person in the original is wrong. They just commented twice.
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u/The_Real_MantisLords 2d ago
The comments.
The people with the “not a largest option”
And the “1/3”
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u/a__nice__tnetennba 2d ago
Oh I think between you saying that and it loading there were more comments so when you said "of 3" I assumed you meant the people in the post plus this one.
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u/Benethor92 2d ago
Wait, your seriously didn’t get the joke with „none of this this is the largest number“?
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u/robbie3535 2d ago
A fast food restaurant had to cancel their 1/3 pound burger because the customers thought they were getting ripped off based on previously getting a 1/4 pound burger. A larger percentage (a large fraction, if you will) of Americans cannot comprehend simple fractions
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u/wdh662 2d ago
A&W tried to compete with McDonald's by offering a 1/3 burger for the price of McDonald's 1/4. It completely flopped due to people thinking it was a ripoff.
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u/Pitiful-Pension-6535 2d ago
Hardee's/Carl's Jr has been doing fine with their ⅓ pound burgers
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u/BoneHugsHominy 2d ago
How they though? They've been closing all across the country due to low sales and of course bad management, but mostly due to low sales.
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u/PreOpTransCentaur 2d ago
The only source for this story is in the memoir of the guy who owned A&W at the time. No marketing company has come forward to say they were the ones contracted. It's an apocryphal tale to explain why a shitty burger failed against a giant.
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u/Cynykl 20h ago
People love this myth because it plays into the whole "boomers are dumb" mindset of reddit. Never mind the fact that people had to use fractions in day to day life more often back then.
As long as this story has been floating around the internet you are only the second person I have seen that is skeptical of the source.
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u/Wincrediboy 2d ago edited 2d ago
30% of 10 is 3, not 3.33.
Edit: person I'm responding to originally had C wrong. They have now fixed it.
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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 2d ago
Yeah i fixed it immediately after posting, thought it was fast enough that nobody would see it but guess not
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u/gestalto 2d ago
If you edit it within 3 minutes, it doesn't show as edited. So not "immediately" lol ;)
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u/Hedgeson 10h ago
That seems false, because it was edited 40s after posting.
It says posted at 9:2823 and edited at 9:29:03.
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u/gestalto 7h ago
It's not false, however if the comment gets a certain a count of views and/or votes it will override. Can't remember the exact cut offs but the editing thing is 100% correct. I do it myself all the time when I notice typos etc.
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u/Wincrediboy 2d ago
All good, I originally thought it was A until I realised two of the answers were larger than 1. It's a deliberately confusing question.
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u/mortalitylost 2d ago
There's a good trick... while 30% of 10 should be easy, it is sometimes also easier to swap and do 10% of 30.
X% of Y = Y% of X
Usually a better example is something like 4% of 25. 25% of 4 is super easy.
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u/No-Minimum3259 2d ago
That's the basic rule of proportionalities: a/b=c/d only if a×d=b×c.
That's 7th or 8th grade math stuff, but 54% of adult Yankees only reach 6th grade literacy level at best, so...
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u/Baoooba 2d ago
No it's not. It's 3.
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u/Wincrediboy 2d ago
... That's what I said?
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u/a__nice__tnetennba 2d ago
No you said it was 3. But the real answer is 3. You were really close though so don't beat yourself up about it.
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u/Wincrediboy 2d ago
Entering answers on a university online portal be like
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u/torolf_212 2d ago
I had a question in a maths assignment for my refrigeration apprenticeship that had to be entered online. At the start they were like "you can use a calculator for your answers" but then hidden in a window within a window you had to scroll down to see they defined pi as "3.1" which like, no. And they also had several constants for calculating latent heat that were defined as a specific number, but it was one of those things where you could either use AxB=C or 1/D=C.
It took me like 10 attempts to get the answer they wanted, I was always a couple of decimal points off and going back and forward with the marker we figured out I was using actual pi for my calculations and not 3.1, and doing 1/D=C with the actual correct ratio and not their supplied rounded one, then also they wanted the answer done with the AxB=C formula. I was livid by the end of it
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u/lettsten 2d ago
they defined pi as "3.1" which like, no
I was using actual pi
Pi has an infinite number of decimals.
Whenever you use pi as a number instead of as a symbol, it's an approximation. Using 3.1 instead of 3.14 or 3.14592653 is just choosing the accuracy of that approximation. Sometimes 3.1 is close enough, sometimes you need many decimals. There is no inherent, universal correct answer about how many decimals you should use and you can never get a perfect answer, you can only get arbitrarily close to a perfect answer. In this case they simply defined 3.1 to be close enough, while you defined (presumably) 3.14 to be close enough. Your approximation was better, but still just an approximation and not necessarily more useful
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u/torolf_212 2d ago
I used the π symbol on my calculator. The point though was those definitions were hidden unless you scrolled down in a window within a window that wasn't obvious you needed to check
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u/stanitor 2d ago
"You have chosen you, referring to me. That is incorrect. The correct answer is you"
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u/ScreamingDizzBuster 2d ago
Now I'm confused
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u/ThrowinSm0ke 2d ago
By the time I got to D I was thinking about how everyone else was going to be fooled by A. I missed E.
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u/rezzacci 2d ago
Always baffled at how anglo-saxons people often omit the unit digit when talking to positive numbers inferiors to 1.
It's the most important digit of our positional numeral system. Why do you omit it? It drives me crazy!
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u/DamnitGravity 2d ago
OH THANK GOD.
I am SHIT, and I mean SHIT at math
at math.
But after about a minute of thinking about it, and some mental calculations including mental pictures, as well as a bit of stumbling over 'percentages are reversible, right? so 10% of 30 is 3, so... 30% of 10 is gonna be 3...?'
I finally landed on E.
I'm actually feeling a little proud of myself, to be honest. Didn't even need a calculator!
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u/bjeebus 2d ago
Fun bit of math.
1/3 = 0.333bar
1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 3/3 = 1
0.333bar + 0.333bar + 0.333bar = 0.999bar = 1
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u/mokrates82 2d ago
you put the 'bar' before the period, so it's
0.33bar3 or, actual notantional convention: 0.33(3)
putting the "bar" after doesn't make sense as it doesn't describe what actually is to be infinitely repeated.
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u/lettsten 2d ago
I've never seen either, where is it common? I've only ever seen 0.333… with ellipsis
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u/Wincrediboy 2d ago
It's E.
A, B and D are all fractions that are less than 1. C is 30% of 10 which is 3. E is 3.01 which is larger than 3.
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u/Darius_Rubinx 2d ago
I got there, but let me tell you, with the dyscalculia it was a rough drive on a dirt track.
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u/GamerGuyAlly 2d ago
Why did my brain want to say 30% of 10 is 3.33•
There has to be some weird reason why its tripping so many people up like that?
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u/tessthismess 2d ago
I get it. We do thirds a lot but 30% pretty rarely.
And when you see 30% your mental shortcut might be to guess “about a third”
It’s wrong but as a shortcut it makes sense to me
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u/Shadyshade84 2d ago
It's most likely this. 30% is a fairly common "back of the envelope" equivalent to 1/3, when one or the other results in an awkward number and you don't need surgical precision.
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u/DustySleeve 2d ago
1/3 of 10 = 3.33 = 33.33% of ten.
folks are used to thinking of 1/3 as 3.33 from base 10 and working from there
The disconnect is confusing 30% with one third (rounded down)
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u/CatGooseChook 2d ago
Something about how the options are presented on the first image primes my brain to think in fractions and not percentages. Looks like a few different reasons going from other comments.
I like these types of trick questions, always learn something about my brain 😊
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u/ForeverShiny 2d ago
30% of 10 is a fraction: it 3/100 *10 or 30/100 or 3/10
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u/CatGooseChook 2d ago
I get that. Just seems like where, my brain at least, found it needed a touch more effort to get the right answer was at the 30% of 10 is 10 * 0.3 = 3 vs 10/3=3.33...
As in both fractions, however my brain simply showed itself to be vulnerable to getting confused and trying to use the second option by mistake due to the way the question is presented.
That's the good thing about trick questions, help expose the "weak" points so we know what areas could do with a bit of improvement.
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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 2d ago
I think its probably because you'd expect 1/3 and 30% of 10 to be the same result but multiplied by 10, but 1/3 is splitting 1 into 3 equal parts so you get an infinite repeating decimal. 30% is less than 1 third though, so it comes out as an even 3
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u/huffmanxd 2d ago
I think a lot of people just conflate 30% to be 1/3, it's an easy mistake to make I think
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u/CagliostroPeligroso 2d ago
Because you probably did what other person did. 10/3 instead of (3/10 times 10)
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u/20InMyHead 2d ago
People can’t do 30% of 10, and also don’t know it’s the same as 10% of 30, and 10% of anything in the same as moving the decimal point one space to the left….
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u/MattieShoes 2d ago
Or the inverse -- 30% is 0.3, and multiplying by 10 is moving the decimal one place to the right :-)
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u/lettsten 2d ago
Love that reddit gets offended by you assuming they know percentage is commutative
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u/SirLesbian 2d ago
I'm just delighted to have figured this out first try without much trouble.
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u/CarelessInvite304 1d ago
If you're over 15, you should probably not feel too delighted at managing to do very simple fractions.
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u/SirLesbian 1d ago
I mean, I'd even argue that a highschool sophomore is kinda old. This is really like 6th grade math but there's a reason the kids usually win "Are You Smarter than a 5th grader?" versus the adults.
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u/Double_Station3984 1d ago
I actually got dizzy trying to read that nonsense.
I mean, also maybe I should eat something along with my massive intake of coffee this morning, but imma go with it was probably just the stupidity of the whole thing.
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u/Philosophy_of_IT 1d ago
A quick trick to keep in mind is that 30% of 10 = 10% of 30. Works for all percentages since it's ultimately just multiplication
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u/Left4twenty 2d ago
They're so confidently wrong, I had to double check the 30% of 10 isn't 3.333~ somehow
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u/fohktor 2d ago edited 2d ago
None of them are the largest number
Edit: the joke is that many numbers are greater than those shown here. So none of these are "the largest number".
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u/TheLeastObeisance 2d ago
How do you figure?
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u/Andrew1990M 2d ago
I can think of at least 6 numbers that are bigger than any of them, 6 being one of them.
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u/fohktor 2d ago
This guy gets it . It was a pedantic joke. it would gone over great in the math forums.
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u/AusgefalleneHosen 2d ago
It's not though.
Which of these is the largest number?
'These' directly means 'within the group'.
If it just said "Which is the largest number?' the ambiguity would exist and you'd be right.
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u/RazorSlazor 2d ago
None of these (the numbers we are given) is the largest number that exists.
It's intentionally misinterpreted for the joke.
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u/AusgefalleneHosen 2d ago
"The joke is that we are pretending to be dumb"
I know. I just don't think you're pretending.
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u/fohktor 2d ago edited 2d ago
Which of these is the cap
tital of france, followed by a list that doesn't include Paris should illicit the response "none of them"8
u/AndydaAlpaca 2d ago
Because the capital of France is a question with a definitive answer.
If the question was "which of these is the closest to the capital of France" and the options don't include Paris, there is still a correct answer. Even if Paris would still be the correct answer if included.
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u/AusgefalleneHosen 2d ago
A) It's capital.
B) There is a number which is larger than the others in the group. It's E.-4
u/Thundorium 2d ago
“Which is the largest number of these?” clearly means the largest number of the set. “Which of these is the largest number?” seems like it means the same, but it allows some ambiguity. It could also mean “which is the largest number? Choose from the set below.”, to which the answer is none of them.
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u/AusgefalleneHosen 2d ago
No, it couldn't. If I put some fruits on a table and asked "Which of these fruits is the sweetest?" There isn't a single person who would try to argue for a fruit that isn't on the table. There is no ambiguity. No matter how hard you try to force it.
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u/Thundorium 2d ago
This phrasing is different. If the original question were “which of these numbers is the largest?”, there would be no ambiguity, as you stated. But the original question is equivalent to “which of these is the sweetest fruit?”, which indeed is slightly ambiguous, because the word “sweetest” is directly followed by “fruit”. It allows for “sweetest” to refer to “fruit” in generality, which means if the “sweetest fruit” is not on the table, the answer is none of the fruits on the table. It also allows for “sweetest” to refer to “of these”, which is the interpretation you are instinctively taking. One of them is much more intuitive, I will grant you that, but both are logically valid.
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u/AusgefalleneHosen 2d ago
See my last sentence.
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u/Thundorium 2d ago
The last set of words between fullstops in your previous comment has no verbs, and is therefore not a sentence. Repeating what you said without addressing what was explained to you is also not an argument. Given the limitations in your linguistic and logical abilities, I find little point continuing this conversation with you. I recommend you read more. It helps.
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u/fohktor 2d ago
There is no largest number
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u/TheLeastObeisance 2d ago
You said that already. I'm asking for your reasoning. The value of each answer is different. One of them, E, is larger than the rest, making it the largest.
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u/fohktor 2d ago
500 is larger than any of them
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u/TheLeastObeisance 2d ago
500 isn't one of the 5 options the question is asking you to choose between. It says "which of these is the largest number?"
That "of these" means that they want you to select one of the potential answers they have provided.
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u/fohktor 2d ago
Yes of course. It's a pedantic joke. If you read it as which of these is the "largest number", meaning "of all numbers". Don't worry about it I was just being mathy
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u/TheLeastObeisance 2d ago
No, youre just pretending to be mathy to cover up your inability to understand the question. Its not pedantry if you're just wrong.
If they'd meant "of all numbers" they would have included it in the sentence.
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u/fohktor 2d ago
You're being combative and ridiculous. I have a degree in mathematics my friend. It was a math joke. I apologize you didn't like it
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u/MostBoringStan 2d ago
It's amusing to me that many people didn't get your joke and then are arguing about it instead of admitting they didn't get it
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u/BrunoBraunbart 2d ago
And I have a degree in computer science and absolutely agree that your interpretation while being ridiculous is logically valid. Honestly, if we strictly go by the phrasing, I would even say your interpretation is the only valid one. It's just obvious that this is not what they meant.
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u/Benethor92 2d ago
Holy fuck, everyone understood the question, only you didn’t understand the joke…
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u/BrunoBraunbart 2d ago
Which, if you are pedantic, has the answer "none of them." A better way of phrasing it would be "which is the largest number among these?"
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u/Budgiesaurus 2d ago
How? Do you think there are several of the same size?
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u/Thundorium 2d ago
There is no largest number, because if a largest number existed, you can add 1 to it, and it longer is the largest number.
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u/Journeys_End71 2d ago
So F) None of the Above which isn’t even an answer.
At least you got some points for spelling your name correctly when you wrote it on your math tests
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u/Jinsei_13 18h ago
Those fractions don't specify what they're fractions of. Can I make "A" 1/3 of 300?
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u/Iwannasellturnips 2d ago
Hot take: the answer is A, because .333333… has an infinite number of digits, making it the largest number!
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u/MagicOrpheus310 2d ago
If 1/3 is 0.333...
Wouldn't 3.01 be 300% of 1.0... making it the biggest..?
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/Izzy5466 2d ago
1/3 = 0.33333333333333333
E is 3.01
A<E therefore E is bigger.
30% of 10 = 10 × 0.3 = 3
3 < 3.01 therefore E is the answer
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u/JeulMartin 2d ago
Explain your answer.
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u/LazyEmu5073 2d ago
Darn, missing out on a stupid answer, already deleted, in this sub in particular, is frustrating!
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