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Negative numbers baffle scratchcard buyers.

Mojo

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Mojo
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'Cool Cash' card confusion.

To qualify for a prize, users had to scratch away a window to reveal a temperature lower than the figure displayed on each card. As the game had a winter theme, the temperature was usually below freezing.

But the concept of comparing negative numbers proved too difficult for some Camelot received dozens of complaints on the first day from players who could not understand how, for example, -5 is higher than -6.

...

"I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher - not lower - than -8 but I'm not having it."
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:hb:
 
Oh noes, I actually read the entire article. This is, eh, sad, isn't it? I mean the story, not me reading an article.
 
I suppose this might happen in places where it seldom gets below freezing, or where they measure temperatures in Fahrenheit (in which sub-zero temperatures are more rare).

In the math textbook I use, they introduce the concept of negative numbers by saying that temperatures -sometimes- get below zero degrees. Being from Edmonton, I find the "sometimes" to be hilarious.
 
Huntsman said:
And here I thought the U.S. was falling behind everyone in math and science education. At least we're still running neck and neck with someone :)
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Yeah, but running neck and neck with Levenshulme is nowt to be proud of.

Each day I become less and less sure if ShamelessWP is a comedy or a documentary. :p
 
Innumerate gamblers. Not good. This certainly makes me wonder if the National Lottery has customers or if it has victims.
 
Oh dear me.

I think Camelot are giving people the wrong impression - the card doesn't say to look for a colder or warmer temperature, it says to look for a higher or lower number. Six is a lower number than 8. Imagine how many people have been misled.
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Six is a lower number than eight, yes. Sadly, her card said minus six, not six. How thick? I mean, fine, admit the gap in your knowledge, learn and move on. But don't try and insist you're right. Six and minus six are not the same numbers. Stupid cow.

To be fair, though, it's possible that the paper made up the quote.
 
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It depends what you mean by "lower".

The people were quite correct in their complaints if they were considering the magnitude of the value. -6 is lower (i.e. closer to zero) than -8.

Another example (that most non-mathematical people are familiar with) is debt. A person with a mortgage of £125,000 has a lower debt than a person with a £300,000 mortgage, even though both are amounts of money you owe i.e. are negative.

What they should have stated was a number more negative than -8 is required to win a prize.
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
It depends what you mean by "lower".

The people were quite correct in their complaints if they were considering the magnitude of the value. -6 is lower (i.e. closer to zero) than -8.
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But the card clearly said a "lower temperature".
 
Pssst. A little secret. I sell these things. There,s lots of money in them trashcans.
ETA: I am in the US though.
 
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At first I thought "perhaps they've just made a mistake due to bad instructions", but then I read the article and just realized that people are just stupid.

Maybe they should have included a little scale?

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 ?

"If your number is on the right side of the number on the card, you are a winner!"

ETA: Oops, did I just make a reverse x-axis? Oh well :)
 
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Almost three times as many UK adults (15.1m) have poor numeracy - the equivalent of a G or below at GCSE maths - than with poor literacy skills, according to the government's Skills for Life survey.
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Am I the only one who finds it odd that a sentence describing poor literacy skills was written by someone with poor literacy skills?
 
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