A dad has taken to social media to seek the answers to his daughter’s maths homework. He spent a good while trying to figure it out himself but ended up giving up on it
A dad has been left scratching his head over a children’s homework question so challenging even maths graduates have been struggling to solve it. Desperate for answers, he has taken to social media to ask users to break it down for him, admitting it is making him ‘lose his mind’.
He wrote: “So yeah. My daughter said she needed help with her homework and this mystery number **** is about to make me lose it.” After sharing a picture of the worksheet on Reddit, he received more than 250 upvotes and nearly 200 comments from people trying to solve the problem.
The question reads: “Mr. Ruis gives his class clues about a 6-digit mystery number. The 3 is in a place that is 10 times greater than the place of the 0. The 1 is in a place that is 10 times less than the place of the 0. The 4 is in a place that is 10 times more than the place of the 3. The 9 is in a place that is 100 times less than the 1. The 2 is in a place that is 10 times more than the 9. What is Mr. Ruis’ 6-digit mystery number?”
Trying to figure it out, one user said: “Oh I thought it was 921034. But now I realize that bigger numbers are on the left, lol.” In response, another user added: “I have a math degree and did the same thing.” One more user responded: “I’m a CS major, apparently my brain is little-endian and so is yours.”
Commenting on the task, one user added: “They gave her a zebra puzzle for math homework? That’s messed up. This is just the math version of Einstein’s riddle.” Breaking down the answer, another user said: “I know there is a 3 and a 0 and that the 3 must be directly to the left of the 0 since its place is 10x greater than that of the 0 (30).
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“Now I need to add a 1 and since its place is 10x less than that of the 0 it must go directly to the right of the 0. (301). Now I need to add the 4 directly to the left of the 3 since its place is 10x greater than that of the 3. (4301).
“Now I need to add the 9 which is “tricky” since its place is 100x less than that of the 1 so it needs to be 2 spots to the right of the 1. (4301_9). Now to fill in the blank with the 2, which fits in with the clue that the place of the 2 is 10x greater than that of the 9, or in other terms 1 spot directly to the left of the 9 (430129).”
Thanking them for their logic, one user commented: “My kids are in preschool. I’m 44 years old so the way I learned math is different. I’m saving this post to help me out with his homework years from now.” A final user said: “This sounds pretty logical.”
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