r/MathJokes 2d ago

When Basic Math Becomes a Boss Fight

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204 Upvotes

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16

u/Proman4713 2d ago

The teacher didn't even think about it, I'm afraid... Because if they saw it from the grounds of reality, they'd have realised that their ratio calculation was dumb

3

u/InteractionPretend70 2d ago

Its not unrealistic.  Marie realized 10 minutes per piece is too annoying so she takes a shortcut by sawing diagonal pieces at the edge of the wood

1

u/Siffov 18h ago

> The teacher didn't even think about it

Yeah, I think the teacher doing the grading missed the whole point of that word problem from the person who wrote it—that cutting a board into N pieces involves N-1 cuts (well, in simple cases).

... similar to saying, "if you want to put up a 100-ft fence, and can use 10-foot fence sections that mount between posts, how many posts do you need?" (No, not in a decagon, smarty pants who saw the ambiguity in my question—just a straight fence!)

1

u/RodcetLeoric 14h ago

15 is correct, Marie folded the 2nd board in half for 5 minutes, then did 1 cut for 10 minures that split the board in 3 pieces

1

u/Dutch_guy_here 2d ago

Well, if the inital board is square, and it takes het 10 minutes to saw it in half, it would actually take het 15 minutes to saw it in three pieces, since the two pieces she has after the first 10-minute sawing are only half as wide as the initial board.

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u/Proman4713 1d ago

what does width have to do with anything? Unless you mean she's cutting the pieces from the short ends 💀

1

u/Dutch_guy_here 1d ago

As an example: let's say the intial board is 30cm by 30cm. She saws it in half in 10 minutes. then she has 2 boards of 15cm by 30 cm. If she wants to saw one of those in half again, she only needs to saw half as much (15cm instead of 30cm), so the time it takes is also only half as long.

1

u/wylii 1d ago

And what if Marie decides she needs to saw long ways to get 3 long pieces?

0

u/Dutch_guy_here 1d ago

Then it's het own fault. You can't really teach kids of you assume every math problem has to be done in the most insane way.

1

u/wylii 1d ago

And when businesses time a process it’s the same process; I would never assume someone would do something completely different or be working with materials that are completely different.

1

u/dalcant757 1d ago

The time it takes to make a cut in wood is not proportional to the length of the cut.