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Ultimate math trick question?

McHrozni said:
I know, I cited the post. Your supposedly "complete" answer did not include time dilatation due to effects of speed or gravity.

wait til sis becomes 12, then you are between 14 and 14 years +182 days. always rounding down means you are 14 either way. This is your minimum age because 12 years 0 days is your sister's minimum age.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11910866&postcount=77

If we include wormholes there is no minimum or maximum age you could be. This answer is at least as reasonable as your answer to the question. At a minimum you need to add there were no time dilatation effects greater for either of you during this time.

McHrozni
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of course we can always cheat with black holes, worm holes, speed of light time dilation etc....That's why in post #one I specifically noted those ways of cheating don't count
 
Red Baron Farms said:
of course we can always cheat with black holes, worm holes, speed of light time dilation etc....That's why in post #one I specifically noted those ways of cheating don't count
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You didn't mention worm holes. Besides, if time dilatation and gravitational dilatation doesn't count, that means the two kids were suspended in vacuum all this time. Neither is likely to have made it, so the question is meaningless - the sister never did turn 12.

McHrozni
 
I haven't posted here in ages, but after reading this I just had to:

The answer is 14.

Everything else is mathematic pedantry and semantic bs.

(Why yes I studied physics where everything was in a frictionless vacuum)
 
Once you go beyond the simple maths that makes the answer 14, the only real answer is : There is not enough information to answer this question in a non-ambiguous way.

It's just an excuse to exercise pedantry, which I recognise as a self-confessed pedant.

Surprised nobody has come up with innovative solutions that involve crossing the international date line.
 
Worm said:
Surprised nobody has come up with innovative solutions that involve crossing the international date line.
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Right. Doing so can give you an additional day of difference the supposedly 'complete' answer didn't account for.

McHrozni
 
How is the date relevant to the question? How old something (or someone) actually is is not dependant upon the arbitrariness of a calendar.
If a year is 365.25 (rounded) revolutions of the Earth, and we count age from the moment of birth, then one is 4 years old when the Earth has revolved 1461 times- regardless of whether a calendar says it's February 28th., or Feb. 29th.

As pointed out earlier, if 4 years does not mean 4 years, and half does not mean half, then the question is open to multiple interpretations and is really not a "math" puzzle any longer.
 
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A "trick" question which relies merely on insufficient data or degree of precision to catch people out, I henceforth submit shall be known as a dick question.
 
I read it as exactly 10 years ago, my sister was half my age. I was 4 and she was 2. Therefore, exactly 10 years later, she is 12 and I am 14.
 
Loss Leader said:
Even in the West, we do that. If a baby is born on December 31, the parents get to write him off as a dependent for the whole year. So the IRS considers all children to be born on the previous January 1. it also considers all children to turn 18 on the next January 1 after their birthday.
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You and your US-centrism! I don't think I had any tax advantages from my son being born on that day.
 
Ask a child how old they are and one might garner an answer such as 5 and a half. Or even 4 and a quarter. By teenage years they grow out of that. By adult years that sort of nonsense is right out.

Nevertheless, I have had the occasional CV cross my desk wherein the applicant will claim to be "a 27 and a half year old adult". That is instant bin liner. If you have to claim that you are 27 and a half then you are not an adult. Dave Gorman did a piece on one of his shows about this. It resonated with me from personal experience.
 
abaddon said:
Ask a child how old they are and one might garner an answer such as 5 and a half. Or even 4 and a quarter. By teenage years they grow out of that. By adult years that sort of nonsense is right out.

Nevertheless, I have had the occasional CV cross my desk wherein the applicant will claim to be "a 27 and a half year old adult". That is instant bin liner. If you have to claim that you are 27 and a half then you are not an adult. Dave Gorman did a piece on one of his shows about this. It resonated with me from personal experience.
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I think that if you had invited them for an interview, you would have found they were actually three small children on top of each other, dressed in a trenchcoat.
 
Distracted1 said:
How is the date relevant to the question? How old something (or someone) actually is is not dependant upon the arbitrariness of a calendar.
If a year is 365.25 (rounded) revolutions of the Earth, and we count age from the moment of birth, then one is 4 years old when the Earth has revolved 1461 times- regardless of whether a calendar says it's February 28th., or Feb. 29th.

As pointed out earlier, if 4 years does not mean 4 years, and half does not mean half, then the question is open to multiple interpretations and is really not a "math" puzzle any longer.
Click to expand...
She could be born February 29th and you born on March 1st two years earlier. when you reach 4, she would be 1/2 your age but with a birthday prior to yours in February instead of March. Since leap day babies celebrate their birthdays on February 28th in non-leap years, 10 years later for 1 day you might be 13 while she was 12. It’s cheating a bit, certainly pedantic, but it could be conceived as such. This is different than understanding 4 years means 4 years + up to 364 days in common usage of the term, and half means exactly that, half.
 
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