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:
Richard Wiseman
Via Astropixie:
http://amandabauer.blogspot.com/2010/10/circle-puzzle.html
Atk
solved it in 2 minutes
Dude… this is 5th grade math…
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
Oh wait… the radius? AHAHAHAHA
Instantly.
If there is anyone who is in high school or older that didn’t get this then my profession has some ‘splaining to do.
Though it might have been more obvious if the hypotenuse had been going left-bottom to top-right. Maybe.
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.
8
7 minutes.
The green line is not 3″. It’s 2.34.
Assuming the diagram is not fully to scale, that 3″ part can be any size from 0 to 8 inches. 3″ is perfectly possible.
No dude, 45-45-90 triangle has specific proportions.
Who told you that this triangle is isosceles?
Atk
I facepalmed so hard when I worked out the easy way to solve that…
1.5 minutes of staring at the picture and running calculations in my mind, when suddenly I was like “wait… oh shi…”
Nice puzzle =)
I solved it in one second.
I won’t tell you how many quotation marks long the radius is, though.
Stared at it for about 2 min, sometimes it takes a while to see the little things.
Let me guess, is the radius 7 inches?
11
oops I forgot to not say the answer
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.
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. 😉
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”?
…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 =)
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.
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.
Hah. If a teacher tried that here there’d be a major lawsuit for abuse against students. 😛
Ah yes, “civilisation.” Although I should say it didn’t really hurt, but everyone was afraid of it anyway so it was mental terror.
In Romania both are accepted.
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.
I’m the one in a 2nd world country… Stop feeling insecure about speaking the devil’s language.
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.
Mai poti sa te muti daca vrei. Hug you, too. Not that obvious, but I get it.
Nu e asa de usor sa te adaptezi alt undeva. You know me, so it is obvious. Monkeybutt.
Plus despartirea de prieteni si lipsa unei modalitati bune de facut bani. *raises his finger and opes his mouth* *accepts defeat* Kittytooshie.
Aw. I was expecting some very ungentlemanly and lady like behaviors, like biting thumbs.
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
Psych Major reporting in.
I can totally see myself using this in the world of employment.
international baccalaureate graduate ready and accounted for
oh, I see it. Derp.
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
I got it, but fuck I hate math. Math is proof that hell exists.
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?
Good God I’m glad I’m a music major. This shit makes my head hurt.