
To dieA, :*
“Can you figure out the radius of the circle?
(…) please do NOT post your answers, but do feel free to say if you have solved the puzzles and how long it took.”
From:
richardwiseman.wordpress.com/
Via Astropixie:
amandabauer.blogspot.com/2010/10/circle-puzzle.html
Atk
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October 15, 2010 at 12:19 am
solved it in 2 minutes
October 15, 2010 at 9:55 am
Dude… this is 5th grade math…
October 15, 2010 at 3:33 pm
f you “see” the answer, is trivial! But try to resolve by Pythagoras…
After an hour of calculations, I “saw”… And I felt a complete idiot …
Atk
October 15, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Oh wait… the radius? AHAHAHAHA
October 16, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Instantly.
October 21, 2010 at 9:30 pm
If there is anyone who is in high school or older that didn’t get this then my profession has some ‘splaining to do.
October 21, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Though it might have been more obvious if the hypotenuse had been going left-bottom to top-right. Maybe.
October 23, 2010 at 11:51 am
That’s not fair. It is a “trick question.” It is deliberately trying to get your brain to look at it and use triangle hypotenuse or circle radius math functions and not think about what you know about rectangles.
October 23, 2010 at 2:30 am
8
October 23, 2010 at 2:46 am
7 minutes.
October 23, 2010 at 6:50 am
The green line is not 3″. It’s 2.34.
October 23, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Assuming the diagram is not fully to scale, that 3″ part can be any size from 0 to 8 inches. 3″ is perfectly possible.
October 23, 2010 at 7:32 pm
No dude, 45-45-90 triangle has specific proportions.
October 26, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Who told you that this triangle is isosceles?
Atk
October 23, 2010 at 3:03 am
I facepalmed so hard when I worked out the easy way to solve that…
October 23, 2010 at 3:17 am
1.5 minutes of staring at the picture and running calculations in my mind, when suddenly I was like “wait… oh shi…”
Nice puzzle =)
October 23, 2010 at 3:51 am
I solved it in one second.
I won’t tell you how many quotation marks long the radius is, though.
October 23, 2010 at 4:10 am
Stared at it for about 2 min, sometimes it takes a while to see the little things.
October 23, 2010 at 4:12 am
Let me guess, is the radius 7 inches?
October 23, 2010 at 4:47 am
11
October 23, 2010 at 4:47 am
oops I forgot to not say the answer
October 23, 2010 at 5:10 am
This took far too long for me to see how simple it was.
Also, how often do americans do maths with imperial measurements? It must get a bit awkward sometimes.
October 23, 2010 at 5:35 am
I’m not sure how long it took me, really. I kinda skimmed past the actual question and thought I was supposed to find the measurements of the other 2 sides of the triangle. Which I did, but I needed to determine the radius of the circle, which was the answer to the fucking question, and I don’t remember when I figured that out. I really shouldn’t try to do this shit while drunk. Well, not drunk, exactly, but definitely buzzed.
October 23, 2010 at 5:47 am
I’d say about 3 seconds of morning-head processing time. The reason I knew the answer was much cooler than the answer itself though. It was from a science museum I went to as a kid which had a circular pool table with just one hole in the centre. Cunning.
October 23, 2010 at 8:01 am
Alright, i’m just gonna man up and be honest and say “I don’t get it”.
Why are some people acting like the answer is purely mathmatical while others are like “when you see it, you’ll shit bricks”?
October 23, 2010 at 8:57 am
…it’s both. all you need is basic math, but until you use some imagination (try symmetry) you’ll have a hard time; hence the brickshitting factor =)
October 23, 2010 at 11:54 am
The trick is that it is set up such that you look at the triangles and the circle and your brain tries to make you solve the problem that way. The answer, however, is solvable in 0.1 seconds if you instead shift your brain to think about what you know about rectangles. If you crank on it for a while working on triangle math and suddenly realize the rectangle solution, it’s kind of a facepalm moment.
October 23, 2010 at 11:03 am
Aw. Circles make me happy, thanks Atk. I didn’t have the number right away because I wasn’t sure what the quotation marks indicated. Damn inches, metric system for the win.
I was also surprised by the right angle signs, is that what you use in America to mark a right angle, a little square? We use a little curve.
My old headmistress used to slam a ruler on our fingers if we got this wrong. Lovely woman.
October 23, 2010 at 11:17 am
Hah. If a teacher tried that here there’d be a major lawsuit for abuse against students.
October 23, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Ah yes, “civilisation.” Although I should say it didn’t really hurt, but everyone was afraid of it anyway so it was mental terror.
October 23, 2010 at 12:20 pm
In Romania both are accepted.
October 23, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Yeah I looked it up, it seems only German speaking countries do the curve. In Romania you’re more exposed to English than German, even though German is the most widely spoken language in Europe. I don’t like all these little differences, it makes feel insecure since globally English is more important.
October 23, 2010 at 12:45 pm
I’m the one in a 2nd world country… Stop feeling insecure about speaking the devil’s language.
October 23, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Si eu as fi vrut sa stau in romania. Fuck you. And I don’t feel insecure about speaking it, only mathematical differences bother me for obvious reasons.
October 23, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Mai poti sa te muti daca vrei. Hug you, too. Not that obvious, but I get it.
October 23, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Nu e asa de usor sa te adaptezi alt undeva. You know me, so it is obvious. Monkeybutt.
October 23, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Plus despartirea de prieteni si lipsa unei modalitati bune de facut bani. *raises his finger and opes his mouth* *accepts defeat* Kittytooshie.
October 23, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Aw. I was expecting some very ungentlemanly and lady like behaviors, like biting thumbs.
October 23, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Entertaining as this conversation is, how many more replys until we break MCS?
October 24, 2010 at 11:27 am
I’m glad you liked it!
I got some funny stories about differences in notation, the time when I was a teacher. But that is for another time!
Atk
October 23, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Psych Major reporting in.
October 23, 2010 at 12:39 pm
I can totally see myself using this in the world of employment.
October 23, 2010 at 2:49 pm
international baccalaureate graduate ready and accounted for
October 23, 2010 at 8:03 pm
oh, I see it. Derp.
October 23, 2010 at 10:34 pm
College has me doin such high levels of math that simple problems like this frustrate the shit out of me. I know I know how to solve this but I am so used to going through three sheets of paper to solve a problem that using simple math just seems wrong. :S
October 24, 2010 at 2:07 am
I got it, but fuck I hate math. Math is proof that hell exists.
October 24, 2010 at 7:11 am
After spending 10 minutes with a, b and r, I wanted to use the diagonal and BAM!..
Those who still can’t get it. Check out the other diagonal of that rectangle, what is it?
October 24, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Good God I’m glad I’m a music major. This shit makes my head hurt.