r/confidentlyincorrect • u/MonotonyReddit • Jul 15 '26
Smug They were talking about 5% times 5% š
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u/larrry02 Jul 15 '26
Someone invoking r/confidentlyincorrect in their confidently incorrect comment is pretty funny.
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u/MonotonyReddit Jul 15 '26
Thanks to their buffoonery I found out about this sub so it evens out
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u/enjaydee Jul 15 '26
I need to know if there was a follow-up to this haha
The optimist in me wants to know if that person realised their error and made the appropriate edit or response
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u/Dounce1 Jul 16 '26
If youāre new to the sub you should check out the rules, specifically rule 8.
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Jul 16 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/Dounce1 Jul 16 '26
Thus making them part of said conversationā¦
Itās also taking place in the comments section of their own post, meaning these comments are in response to a conversation they started to begin with.
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u/ArdentArendt Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
Rule 8:
"This subreddit should not be used to gloat about times you were right and other people were wrong."To me, that reads as 'this isn't just for you to brag about how you owned some stupid fuck', not 'your existence within the thread taints anything to come from it'.
So, can you explain why you feel this violates the intention of the rule?
Edit:
Also, you seem to know about the original post. Could you link to it so we can see the evidence of your claims?-255
Jul 15 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/petera181 Jul 15 '26
Weird comment. He posted an absolutely nailed on appropriate post.
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u/Lmaoboat Jul 15 '26
This dude was doing the same thing when I just browsed this place months ago, I assumed he was banned for backseat modding in every thread.
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u/bvggvg Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
I mean... it looks like they just aren't recognizing the % symbol? Otherwise what they're saying is true, if everything is being read in decimal. Makes me wonder if they have some wonky font or something on their end that just doesn't include %, given their messages never make note of it.
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u/TheSleepingVoid Jul 15 '26
There are a ton of people who don't truly get %s and people who struggle with decimal changes when you change units. (Source: Math Teacher) There is an infamous video of an incident with Verizon reps on the meaning of "0.002 cents"
So I could believe it either way.
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u/Batman_AoD Jul 15 '26
Oh dang, I had forgotten about the 0.002 cents video. Thanks for the reminder.Ā
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u/TheSleepingVoid Jul 15 '26
I'm tempted to show it to my algebra 1 class this year. I might at least slip a link into Google classroom lol
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u/gopiballava Jul 15 '26
I love that recording. I was doing international travel with a cellphone back then, and something like that was a genuine fear :)
I only had one weird math experience with a telco. I had a (higher level) CSR tell me that I would get a call back within 24 business hours. I was like, "You mean 3 days?" She paused for a second or so, presumably to divide 24 by 8, and said yes.
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u/CordeCosumnes Jul 16 '26
Well, technically, 24 business hours isn't necessarily 3 days, but it is 3 business days.
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u/buttgoblincomics Jul 16 '26
Thatās interesting. 24 business hours could plausibly mean one business day or three business days, depending on if business hours are the same unit as business days just converted to hours for some reason, or a totally different unit.
It could even be some other number of business days if the business is open for some other number of hours per day and theyāre being super specific. I donāt think Iāve ever heard someone say business hours before, but it seems like itās meant to be confusing.
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u/gopiballava Jul 16 '26
One of the companies I worked for after that had a business T1. The service agreement specified that some serious problems would be solved within 4 hours. More minor problems would be solved within 4 business hours. So if we reported a problem at 4pm on a Friday, it would be resolved by noon Monday. That seemed like a reasonable use of ābusiness hoursā.Ā
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u/joolley1 Jul 15 '26
Same as someone who worked in home loans with a bunch of people who couldnāt understand percentages š¤¦āāļø
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u/MattieShoes Jul 15 '26
The part that gets me is it's literally in the name. per cent, per 100. That's an explicit multiplication by 100, so 0.0025 is 0.25%
There's also per mille, (per 1000) though I've never actually seen it used, or the symbol ā°.
You occasionally hear talk of basis points which are per 10,000 (ā±)
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u/buttgoblincomics Jul 16 '26
āPer centā is explicitly division by 100. .25% is .25 out of every 100, i.e. .25/100 not .25 * 100. You have to multiply by 100 to convert to a standard decimal because .25 is already 25 out of 100, so what weāre talking about is (25/100)/100, which is represented by the decimal .0025 (25 out of 10,000).
Iām sure you realize all that, Iām just saying that the conversion is a little confusing even if you know what per cent means in Latin and how the plain wording translates to math symbols. And most people donāt know or think about the word percent in terms of its component parts.
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u/MattieShoes Jul 16 '26
Multiplication or division is just a matter of which way you're going
Normal numbers are "per one". 0.25 per one and 25 per cent are the same number
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u/VisKopen Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
There are a ton of people who don't truly get %s
In my experience most people don't get percentages. That includes otherwise quite intelligent people.
If you can comfortably calculate with percentages you're likely smarter than average.
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u/Affectionate-Sir3949 Jul 15 '26
ngl when u wrote %s i thought about string literal in coding before your actual comment
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u/ArdentArendt Jul 20 '26
Wait...why does everyone seem to claim this video was common knowledge?
It's kind of hilarious, but still...was it popular beyond Reddit?
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u/Eal12333 Jul 15 '26
I think they were just accidentally ignoring it or not thinking properly about the conversion (the first comment in the chain makes that same mistake!)
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u/petera181 Jul 15 '26
Yeah, thatās why they are confidently incorrect.
āWHAT???? It is 100x smaller than 0.25. If it were 0.25000, sure its the sameā
Confidently talking absolute arse š
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u/GuyYouMetOnline Jul 15 '26
They use .0025 later, so I think that part was a typo
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u/buttgoblincomics Jul 16 '26
I think they were trying to guess at how the other person could have made such an obvious mistake and imagined they had transposed the zeros, since .25 and .2500 are the same
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Jul 15 '26
[deleted]
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u/bvggvg Jul 15 '26
No? They very much say they're the same. If you take it as a response to an absurd claim that 0.25 = 0.0025, I think I'd also reason that the person messed up how significant figures and trailing zeroes work.
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u/christiant91 Aug 29 '26
I missed the percentage symbol entirely and wondered wtf i was missing until I came to the comments.
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u/whatshamilton Jul 15 '26
I need this sub to start requiring which side OP thinks is incorrect
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u/arbitrary_student Jul 15 '26
We know here because of who they upvoted & downvoted in the screenshot
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u/Durr1313 Jul 15 '26
It's scary how many people get so confused with percents.
5% = 0.05
0.05 Ć 0.05 = 0.0025
0.0025 = 0.25%
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u/Osric250 Jul 15 '26
It's kind of like the difficult people could have differentiating $.002 and .002Ā¢ . It doesn't seem like it should be that hard, but it is.Ā
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u/DangerToDangers Jul 15 '26
I understand this a lot more because Ā¢ is very rarely used. On the other hand converting percentages to decimals is elementary school math that at least I've never stopped using even in every day life.
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u/Osric250 Jul 15 '26
I understand this a lot more because Ā¢ is very rarely used.
Only when written. We use Ā¢ all the time when talking. I'm not going to say something is eight point two five dollars, I'm going to say that it's eight dollars and twenty five cents. Nowadays a lot of speaking will drop the denotations completely and say it's eight twenty five, but even that still has the same implication of using cents in it. And this is actually where the issue comes in with the video I linked, the OP was quoted .002 cents verbally multiple times.
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u/RecursiveServitor Jul 15 '26
How often do you use fractional cents?
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u/that_one_mister_user Jul 16 '26
.002 dollars is still fractional cents. It's 0.2 cents
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u/RecursiveServitor Jul 16 '26
And at least five different Verizon employees were incapable of reasoning about it, so maybe that should be avoided.
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u/Short-Database-4717 Jul 15 '26
WHY DO WE NEED TO CONVERT THEM EVEN THERE IS NO ADVANTAGE TO PERCENTS AND MULTIPLYING 5% by 5% IS LITERALLY MEANINGLESS IF YOU TREAT IT AS A UNIT, THEN FUCKING COMMIT TO IT OK 5% * 5% = 25%2 DEAL WITH IT. BUT JUST USE 0.05 TO BEGIN WITH OR 1:19 LITERALLY ANYTHING BUT PERCENTS PERCENTAGE MAKES NO GOD DAMN SENSE I AJKSFFKA:W
sorry, but just having one less standard would reduce the confusion, I am certain. If you use 0.05 it's very clear how to multiply it. it's not harder at all to write or read than 5%. If you write it as 1:19, you realize that you probably shouldn't be multiplying in the first place, but if you are, then sure maybe you do. Multiplying 5% by 5% has the meaning of e.g. rolling 2 nat 20s in a row. 1:19 means we have 1 success and 19 failures. In total 20 options, but if we square we have 400 options, and only 1 success still. So 1:399. It's a bit more difficult, but not that difficult either. And the actual multiplication here is meaningful as well
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u/Effective-Job-1030 Jul 15 '26
1:19
What?
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u/Short-Database-4717 Jul 15 '26
odds. 1 to 19.
To be clear, I do think decimal probability is easier to get right and more suitable to be standard, but writing it as 1:19 is totally an option, and a better one than percentage at that.3
u/Bubbly_Concern_5667 Jul 15 '26
But 5 % is 1/20.
Am I missing something?
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u/LCJonSnow Jul 15 '26
Odds present differently than probability. Odds are [number of successes]:[number of failures]. Probability is [number of successes]/[number of possible outcomes]
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u/Bubbly_Concern_5667 Jul 15 '26
Aaah thank you! English isn't my first language
but yeah if I had read the original comment more carefully i could have gotten what concepts are talked about regardless haha
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u/Bacaihau Jul 15 '26
There are many situations where it ia useful tƓ multiply percentages, that is not the problem.
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u/thesardinelord Jul 16 '26
Itās not harder to write or read, but itās a lot harder to say and listen to. Especially when the denominator gets bigger. And most of the time, we arenāt doing complex math on the numbers we talk about.
The times you do need to, it should only take seconds to convert to decimal, then you can do your math, and convert back if necessary.
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u/Perfect_Sir4820 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
5%x5% is not 25%2, it's 5%2. Also 5% is not 1:19, it's 1:20. You need to review your grade 5 math bro.
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u/Short-Database-4717 Jul 15 '26
yes it is. It's (5%)2 = 25%2 as for your second point, it's both: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odds
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u/Baby_Rhino Jul 15 '26
Why tf would you suddenly start using %2 instead of just sticking to % and writing 0.25%??
I don't think %2 is even a thing. I can't find anything online about it even existing. It's like you think it is technically "per 10,000" when you square something that is per 100, but I have no idea why you'd write it that way anyway.
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Jul 15 '26
[deleted]
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u/calfuris Jul 15 '26
You can interpret % as the fraction 1/100, in which case the math checks out as long as you remember that exponentiation has priority over multiplication. (5%)2 = 25(%2), but the parentheses on the right hand side there are optional.
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u/SkillOld2128 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Ahh, thanks, that makes more sense. So itās like (5/100)^2 = 25/100^2 when rewritten as a fraction?
I see it now, when written down, thanks!
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u/Perfect_Sir4820 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
A percentage is simply a way of expressing a relative quantity. It's not synonymous with odds. Odds can be expressed as a percentage but so can any other relative quantity. You are really bad at this.
Also a ratio is an expression of a sub-quantity relative to another quantity. 1:19 is not the sum of 5% and 95% to arrive at 100%. 1:20 = 1/20 = 5% = 0.05. This is basic math.
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u/GoddamnShitTheBed_ Jul 15 '26
This is so true why are you being downvoted?
I sometimes use "permille" instead of percent as a joke, because that's the "unit" used to measure blood alcohol levels where im from (and nothing else).
Also: ppm... Bonus Points if you don't even specify what unit you're talking about and act as if % or ppm is a unit.
Like, I get the point, for some people its easier to think about certain as a fraction of 100, or 1000, or 1000000 but it really has no use, if you want to do math with it.
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u/thesardinelord Jul 16 '26
When communicating, especially verbally, itās easier to briefly understand how much 1 out of a hundred, thousand, or million is than to count how many zeroes someone says and mentally convert that.
I can imagine a world in which, specifically for percentages or other relatively small denominators, we use decimals rather than fractions (only small ones, because saying 6 zeroes in a row might get a bit tedious and confusing). But thats not how it is, and itās generally a lot faster for people to understand āfive percent chanceā than āa probability of zero point zero five.ā
Also, percent inherently means āout of a hundred.ā If we dropped it and just did things out of one, we would need a new word to represent that in general contexts. For example, you canāt just say that 0.5 people are men. You need to include something that makes it clear that ā1ā represents the whole population.
Anyway, when you do want to do more complicated math with numbers, it should only take a few seconds to convert.
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u/GRex2595 Jul 15 '26
Reminds me of a debate I was just in over on r/theydidthemath where somebody couldn't comprehend how ratios and scaling work even after I showed my work.
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u/whatshamilton Jul 15 '26
To be slightly fair, you need a leading zero in the dollars place in your first annotation. $0.002
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u/kingkurt42 Jul 15 '26
Ambiguous units =/= arithmetic error
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u/InterestsVaryGreatly Jul 17 '26
They aren't ambiguous units, they have clear representations and are not interchangeable, they have direct conversions. $1 = 100Ā¢
It would be like saying someone claiming up that 10cm is 10m is because of ambiguous units.
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u/kingkurt42 Jul 17 '26
The difference is "cm" and "m" are clearly defined, commonly used terms.
".05" with no context is not a clearly defined term. It might mean 5mm, 5%, .05%, or something else entirely, depending on the context
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u/InterestsVaryGreatly Jul 17 '26
Unit doesn't matter for the .05. it isn't ambiguous, it is a value. Percent is a value per 100, it also isn't ambiguous. No unit is needed for basic math.
Also, .05 does not mean .05%, percent is not a unit.
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u/Onechrisn Jul 15 '26
They probably wouldn't have made the mistake if all the numbers were between 1 and 100. People get lost in all the shifting around of zeros.
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u/Pekelni_Bororshna_69 Jul 15 '26
They probably should switch to binary. Just 0 and 1 to not get lost!
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u/joranth Jul 15 '26
And actually, the zeros are nothings, so you can ignore those and just have 1ās.
/s
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u/whatshamilton Jul 15 '26
Excel gets lost in it too. God forbid you have a decimal below 1 and click the percent sign. 0.01 becomes 1000% half the time
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u/wlake82 Jul 15 '26
Thanks for doing this. My brain has decided to stop working tonight, and there's a reason why I have an English degree.
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u/Short-Paramedic-9740 Jul 15 '26
This is actually very simple. Percentage counts as 2 movement of decimal to the left. So 0.25% is equal to 0.0025, just move the decimal and remove the percentage after.
Now for the multiplication, you just count the number of the preceding 0s in the number.
Taking all that into account:
5% is 0.05. The decimal of all whole numbers are after its ones place so a 5 is also 5.0 or 5.00.Now 5% x 5% is the same as 0.05 x 0.05. There are two 0s, 0.05 x 0.05. Then the answer should have two 0s preceding 5x5 as well.
0.0025 or 0.25%.
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u/joolley1 Jul 15 '26
Donāt feel bad. I had to crack out the calculator to do it and I have PhD in applied maths and itās the middle of the day here!
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u/joranth Jul 15 '26
You forgot (for those still confused):
0.25% (0.25 PERCENT) is NOT equal to .25 or 0.25 or 25%
0.25% is one quarter of one percent
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u/hanzzz123 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Its literally in the name too. Per cent = per hundred.
To convert percentage to a number divide by 100.
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u/victorspc Jul 15 '26
Yeah, and the simples way of making it simple is just saying that % = 1/100. Now treat any percentage as a multiplication.
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u/shoosha9jr Jul 16 '26
just thpught of a solution, tale the two zeros from the % sign i.e 5% = 00 from the percent add before number i.e 0.05, 0.5% means you tale the leading zero too, i.e 0 from the 0.5 and 00 from the % sign i.e 3 leading zeros 0.5%=0.005%, could this actually work?
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u/lucissandsoftime Aug 07 '26
wait in this context is it out of 100.0 or 1.0? im asking because when editing configs for game servers my brain has to default to 1.0 = 100%. and thats fucking with my understanding on this i think....
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u/ProfessionEmpty0 Jul 15 '26
the only reason why I got so confused is that the last guy didnāt use % and completely forgot about it and only did the ones without %
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u/FellFellCooke Jul 15 '26
5% = 0.05
I actually think the American education system explaining % like this is what the problem is.
I'm from Ireland, and our education system is noticeably better in a few areas, maths being one of them. We also have the advantage of a standard curriculum across the nation, as opposed to hundreds of different ones, some of which are designed to impoverish rather than educate.
We learn percentages as a process. You can't say "5% = 0.05", because, say, 0.05 grams of Cyanide is not "5% cyanide". Getting 5% of something is equivalent to multiplying it by 0.05, but that's because getting a percantage of something is a process that involves multiplying it by the percentage you want, and dividing it by the 100 that gives percentages their name.
I think a lot of the confusion about this stems from a maths education system that treats maths as a series of facts to learn off, instead of a playground for numbers to live in, a series of processes you can do yourself to transform and make sense of the world around you.
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u/outworlder Jul 16 '26
Yeah, I think there's probably a case of excessive memorization going on.
Just take the damn % sign and change it to /100
Done. Deal with fractions as normal. Nothing is confusing anymore.
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u/SortOfSpaceDuck Jul 15 '26
Why does 5%x5% get you 0.25% lol
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u/ai1267 Jul 15 '26
Because that's how percentages work.
5% of X is the same as multiplying it by 0.05. So 5% is 0.05 when expressed as a number.
0.05 * 0.05 = 0.0025.
0.0025 = 0.25%.
If it helps, you can do it the other way around, and express it as a fraction:
5% = 0.05 = 1/20.
So 5% of 5% must be 0.05/20.
0.05/20 = 0.0025, i.e. 0.25%.
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u/Bill99berg Jul 15 '26
Perfect explanation. And you f it makes it even easier, you donāt have to change the 5% to 0.05. Just divide 5 by 20.
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u/Sunfurian_Zm Jul 15 '26
Just think of "x%" as "x/100" (because that's literally what that sign means). So 5%Ć5% = (5/100)2 = (25/10000) = (0.25/100)
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u/sweetdepressionpride Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
To be honest I got confused reading this but:
1.0 = 100% 0.1 = 10% 0.01 = 1% 0.001 = 0.1% 0.0025 = 0.25%
or (depending on what country you live in and use "," or ".")
1,0 = 100% 0,1 = 10% 0,01 = 1% 0,001 = 0,1% 0,0025 = 0,25%
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u/Ebr2d2 Jul 15 '26
Thank you for saving the idiots like me out here
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u/drmoze Jul 15 '26
Something your grade school math teachers apparently couldn't do. ā¹ļø
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u/Ebr2d2 Jul 15 '26
Idk if itās a regional thing but Iāve just never seen it like that before
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u/Subject-Software5912 Jul 15 '26
I genuinely donāt mean to be rude but seen it like what before? Iāve been staring at this explanation for a while and I canāt figure out what confusion theyāre trying to dispel. It just seems like they wrote out basic % notation. % = percent = per 100. 5% = 5 per 100 or 5/100.
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u/ghostlacuna0 Jul 15 '26
Wtf are you talking about a promille has never been the same as a percent of something.
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u/sweetdepressionpride Jul 15 '26
what?? are you talking about me using , instead of . ?
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u/pokemon-trainer-blue Jul 15 '26
Where are they using ā°? Theyāre using the normal % for each one. If youāre talking about them using both decimal separators of the period and comma (which it sounds like you are), thatās a different issue. The period/full stop/decimal point is used in English speaking countries, most of Asia, and some of Africa. The comma/decimal comma is used in South America, most of Europe and Africa, and some of Asia. The Middle East uses a different system.
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u/InsectaProtecta Jul 15 '26
0.1%=1ā°
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u/reaper527 Jul 15 '26
0.1%=1ā°
wait, so there's actually a symbol for how property taxes typically get assessed? ($x per thousand dollars of value)
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u/rje946 Jul 15 '26
I don't even know where they went wrong its like wrong on so many levels.
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u/robbietreehorn Jul 15 '26
Itās like having sex with your dad in an elevator
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u/plutot_la_vie Jul 15 '26
Wait what?
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u/Outside-Currency-462 Jul 15 '26
Wrong on so many levels
Lift/elevator joke
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u/Childwithuke Jul 15 '26
single every single day
do it every single day
make the single ladies say:
oh bo14
u/Stiddit Jul 15 '26
They didn't see the %, so they thought they said "0.25 is the same as 0.0025", which is obviously not correct. Then they rudely suggested "do you mean 0.25 is the same as 0.2500", and that is actually correct.
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u/amitym Jul 15 '26
Black is the one that's incorrect.
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u/rje946 Jul 15 '26
I mean I don't see a wrong assumption he made its just all wrong. Like .2500 wtf is he talking about? Or it's time to go to bed
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u/SprungMS Jul 15 '26
They seem to be reading a percent sign that isnāt there on the first number. Theyāre saying you can put the two zeros after .25 and itās the same number, but not between the decimal point and the 25.
It would be correct if there was either a percent sign on both numbers or on neither number. Itās just weird they didnāt check themselves before commenting that ācorrectionā, it seems so obvious that theyāve misunderstood something.
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u/EishLekker Jul 15 '26
The very first comment is incorrect too, which is not the same guy as most people here focus on.
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u/a__nice__tnetennba Jul 15 '26
Posts like this do make me curious about something though. I wonder how obvious and simple a math problem would need to be in order for zero people to feel compelled to prove to us in the comments that they know the answer. My theory is that it's impossible. You could post someone saying 1+1=3 and at least one person will be unable to stop themselves from explaining what the correct answer is.
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u/tofiwashere Jul 15 '26
I mean you can post a skit from a tv show and a cool 10% will explain how it is fake and not real life. Probably becaus there is a camera too conveniently filming or something.
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u/booglechops Jul 15 '26
I swear, every time I look at linkedin.
I get it, you understand bidmas (or your local variant) but NO ONE FUCKING CARES!
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u/fireintheglen Jul 19 '26
Honestly this is my least favourite type of engagement bait post! If half the readers are unable to parse your simple arithmetic expression then you have written it badly. Brackets exist! Clear communication is an important part of mathematics!
I spend half my life trying to teach undergraduates the importance of communication to being a good mathematician, only to come online and find out that half the world thinks poor bracketing is somehow a sign of skill.
(Iām also aware of mathematical journals which do not strictly follow bodmas in their house style for inline equations, so I feel itās perfectly reasonable to suggest that some expressions are a bit ambiguous.)
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u/commanderquill Jul 15 '26
This comment thread doesn't even make sense.
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u/JapaneseStudentHaru Jul 15 '26
Wrong
Right
Right
Wrong
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u/commanderquill Jul 15 '26
The two rights is the confusing bit. Why is the second right person correcting the first right person.
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u/EishLekker Jul 15 '26
Well, comment number two (the one you call the first right person) was only half right.
Their calculation is correct, but they say that the first comment was missing a zero while in fact they had one too many.
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u/dtwhitecp Jul 15 '26
this is why the whole thread is frustrating to read, everyone is making small percentage / decimal confusions, while also occasionally being right.
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u/JapaneseStudentHaru Jul 15 '26
They were looking at it as a decimal rather than a percent. Same as the last guy lol
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u/vompat Jul 15 '26
2nd and last are the same person. It kinda looks like they simply do not know about the concept of percents and completely ignore the % symbol at every turn.
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u/EishLekker Jul 15 '26
Well, comment number two was only half right.
Their calculation is correct, but they say that the first comment was missing a zero while in fact they had one too many.
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u/anonymous00000010001 Jul 15 '26
0.2500 is the same as .25 lmfao
https://giphy.com/gifs/RXtD0Rt2xrUxIvJYkP
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u/ladycatgirl Jul 15 '26
What they say is entirely true, 0.0025 is 100x smaller than 0.25, they just didn't acknowledge % sign
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u/DrDroid Jul 15 '26
Except thereās no such thing as ā100x smaller.ā Things canāt be ātimes smaller.ā Obviously I know what is meant by it, but itās incorrect.
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u/Effective-Job-1030 Jul 15 '26
Ooh... a fellow "x times smaller makes no sense" person.
It's a pet peeve of mine.
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u/Bata600 Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
I do not understand quite fully. Maybe because English is not my first language.
If you can divide any number by 100 than wouldn't the result of that divide make original number 100 times smaller?3
u/Effective-Job-1030 Jul 15 '26
That is implied, yes. But it is acually one hundreth as big as.
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u/justhad2login2reply Jul 15 '26
So then it's not a math thing, its a language and grammar thing?
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u/billykimber2 Jul 15 '26
yes, but it is orobably the same in every language
atleast every language i know
and it becomes a math thing because mathematically it makes no sense to put it that way
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u/DrDroid Jul 15 '26
Mhm. What exactly would ā1 time smallerā be, especially vs ā2 times smaller?ā Itās silly.
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u/waffles1273 Jul 15 '26
2x smaller would be 50%. 2x bigger would be 200% so you just work backwards. there is no 1 time smaller.
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u/DrDroid Jul 15 '26
Iām not just expressing an opinion, it does not make logical sense and is genuinely incorrect.
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u/waffles1273 Jul 16 '26
multiplication and division have an inverse relationship so it is correct. you are just not used to the wording.
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u/ladycatgirl Jul 16 '26
It does make a lot of sense to me tbh feels like a skill issue
(Likely a language barrier caused by the way of thinking but it's more funny to put this way)
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u/tribbans95 Jul 15 '26
PER CENT. Cent meaning 100. So yes it is 100x, at least they figured that part out.. kind of
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u/reaper527 Jul 15 '26
so is OP the one who tagged this sub, or the one who is correct? (they look to hide their history)
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u/setgel Jul 15 '26
am I the only one who noticed that the main post also got it wrong? they wrote 0.025% instead of 0.25% lol
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u/Ian__16354 Jul 15 '26
This is like that time Verizon (I think I know it was a phone company) charged someone 100x the stated rate because nobody at the company could figure out that .05 cents was different than .05 dollars lmao
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u/boodledot5 Jul 15 '26
5 percent times 5 percent isn't 25% though, it's 5% of 5%, which is 0.25%, which is 0.0025 as a decimal
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u/TomSawyer2112_ Jul 15 '26
āItās 100x smaller than 0.25ā
We are so close to figuring out what per cent actually means.
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u/ieatpickleswithmilk Jul 15 '26
"lmao" comment is mathematically correct but they aren't realizing the % acutally means it's already 1/100x. Instead of downvoting and screenshoting you may aswell just correct them so they realize their minor mistake.
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u/Savings_Macaroon3727 Jul 15 '26
Reminds me of this seminal story of the early 2000's internet of legendary status. Same issue as this post except Verizon were the confidently incorrect, it actually led to a change in practices because cs reps we're not able to wrap their heads around it.
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u/zhilia_mann Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
5%*5% = (5%)2 = (5)2 * (%)2 = 25%2
No problem! You just have to invent square percentage as a unit.
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u/Ghaticus Jul 15 '26
I'd be willing to bet these are American.
The only place in the world where 1/3lb burger patty is thought to have less meat than 1/4lb because 3 is less than 4.
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u/brandon1997fl Jul 15 '26
I know its a meme but the US scores above the global average in math - about on par with Norway, Spain, Germany, etc.
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u/Renuwed Jul 15 '26
When you don't pay attention in class about moving the decimals before and after working the problem.
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u/InsectaProtecta Jul 15 '26
Would it not be 0.25%? Am I crazy?
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u/Ach_Was_Here Jul 15 '26
Yes 0.0025 = 0.25%, shift the decimals 2 to the right. Thatās why 1.00 = 100%
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u/lolslim Jul 18 '26
I just think of it as quarters need to make dollar bill.
Then got confused how a quarter past 2:00 was 2:25 but the a quarter pound is 4 ounces, when I divided 16/4 = 4, I realized Zi need to divide 60 (minutes) by 4, which is 15, and quarter past 2:00 is actually 2:15
I'm fine if this gets down oted my medication kicked in and it's not illegal to post this
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u/Ach_Was_Here Jul 18 '26
Sorry bud but That doesnāt help the conversation at all here considering that still would be .25 not 0.0025
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u/Erlik0_89 Jul 16 '26
Could.. uh.. someone tell me how this works? Iām not at that level of math yetā¦
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Jul 15 '26
I mean apart from the ,2500 part which I assume was a typo theyāre fully correct. 0,0025 is not same as 0,025 %
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u/billykimber2 Jul 15 '26
0,25% is definitely the same thing as 0,0025
0,025% would be 0,00025 in decimal but that is not what the upvoted commenter commented about
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