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Ultimate math trick question?

Red Baron Farms said:
.....

People can disagree and I am perfectly fine with those here that don't agree but made sound arguments why they don't agree. However, if someone is forced to use a strawman logic fallacy or other unsound reasoning to back up their case, then it only shows they can't really back up their case. They either lack the intellectual tools, or are too lazy to think it through.
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Ad hom argument.. Fail..

Your OP assumes some logical extrapolations that make the obvious answer incorrect. Then when others extrapolate even further, with results that
don't agree with yours, you call foul..

Sour grapes?
 
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Worm said:
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.
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Hilited: Heading to China (where it's either yesterday or tomorrow depending on which direction and which starting point you use ) where they adopted his sister, who is stubbornly loyal to Chinese culture and thus counts her birthday from d.o.b. = 1.

Yet another "ultimate" problem by the wayside. Sad.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Hilited: Heading to China (where it's either yesterday or tomorrow depending on which direction and which starting point you use ) where they adopted his sister, who is stubbornly loyal to Chinese culture and thus counts her birthday from d.o.b. = 1.
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:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::D I like it!
Chinese POV certainly does add an interesting wrinkle!:p
 
Red Baron Farms said:
It is not only fallacious reasoning, the fact WP has repeatedly used this fallacious arguing style on this thread is evidence (to me at least) why he lacks the critical thinking skills and logic ability to solve the OP in the first place, or even understand the explanation which came later.
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Derp derp burp burp. I got no critical thinkings. LOL fart fart. You got all the critical thinkings and no fallacious oneses. Hooop hooop you must be king. I got no logic too. Poop poop pooo.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Hilited: Heading to China (where it's either yesterday or tomorrow depending on which direction and which starting point you use ) where they adopted his sister, who is stubbornly loyal to Chinese culture and thus counts her birthday from d.o.b. = 1.

Yet another "ultimate" problem by the wayside. Sad.
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You're late. :p
 
Ziggurat said:
Nope, you're wrong.

You see, not everyone considers babies 0 years old upon birth. Sometimes a baby right after birth is considered one year old. Thus, a four year old may have been born just three years ago. And someone exactly half their age would thus be born a year and a half ago. There will then be a period of time (6 months) when the older person is 13 while the younger person is 12.

Since you never specified which standard for reckoning ages your problem used, we must consider both possibilities, and 13 becomes a possibility again.
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:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::D Sound argument. Sorry I missed it earlier today.
 
This remains among the worst attempts at logical thinking that I have ever witnessed.


Unstated assumptions come and go as pleases RBF. Precision comes in and out of focus as works for him. And none of it is in any way necessary, let alone correct, let alone anything other than exceptionally, gargantuanly, heart-stoppingly stupid.
 
Let's change the problem: For six pages so far, RBF engages in pedantic asshattery. How many more pages will it be before all other posters tire of participating in this complete waste of time?

This signature is intended to irrumate people.
 
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Red Baron Farms said:
matters little
Still only gives you 14 and 15 rather than 13 14 and 15.
SEE ABOVE. Same principle different numbers. net result is applied to the op would still give 14 and 15 as possibilities and not 13.
Reasonable. The question didn't say that, but if it did, your argument would be irrefutable.

The way the question is worded, without invoking some ridiculous scenario, the sister is always at minimum 2 years younger or more. This means rather than like what Mike answered:
it goes the other way and is 14-15 not 13-14.

If the question said she was nominally 2 it would allow a 13 result. It said half. You can never 1/2 a number equal to or greater than 4 and get a number less than 2. So without the stupid pedantic results I promised NOT to bring to the puzzle, the answer can never include 13.

That's why I agree if we just want you say years only, 14 is an acceptable answer. But if we try to break it down to include more results like 15, then we can include 15 but not 13 without being willfully stupid about it. (like invoking leap years or time dilation/zones etc.)
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The problem states that the sister is half the brother's age. In common parlance, two is half of four. I don't see why we cannot include 13. It does not state that at all times when the brother was four the sister was half the age. It states that at some arbitrary moment when the brother was nominally 4, his sister was half the age, and if we assume nominal ages, she could have turned two after he turned four, thus allowing that at some other point when he was four she was either one or two. If you allow that the brother and sister have differing birthdays you must allow for the possibility that, though for some part of the brother's year 4, she was 2, she either became two after his fourth birthday, meaning that for some time when he was 4 she was 1, or that she became 2 before his fourth birthday, meaning that for some time before his 5th birthday, she turned 3. If you want a more precise answer the rules for reporting age must be specified at the start. The only unit of measurement mentioned in the problem is the age in years, and that means simply that at some arbitrary point during the year in which the brother could be said to be four years old, the sister was half as many years old, which is two. Other assumptions are gratuitous and (obviously) endlessly arguable.
 
Red Baron Farms said:
COME ON. Dont lose focus. It is a silly argument. He is being willfully ignorant. You can easily spot when someone does this. It's trivially easy. The form of the fallacious argument goes something like this:

"Wait, are you saying that (insert something clearly NOT said)"? Then argue how silly that thing was that wasn't said would be if it indeed was said.

It is not only fallacious reasoning, the fact WP has repeatedly used this fallacious arguing style on this thread is evidence (to me at least) why he lacks the critical thinking skills and logic ability to solve the OP in the first place, or even understand the explanation which came later.

People can disagree and I am perfectly fine with those here that don't agree but made sound arguments why they don't agree. However, if someone is forced to use a strawman logic fallacy or other unsound reasoning to back up their case, then it only shows they can't really back up their case. They either lack the intellectual tools, or are too lazy to think it through.
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1 + 2 = 3

no it doesn't, when I said one, I meant one and a bit .......so there!
tHe aNswEr is less thaN 5.
 
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Shouldn't this thread be moved to Puzzles, where we might find denizens who appreciate the fine art of turd-in-punchbowl solutions?

Seems that bothering these nice science and math geeks just gets their hackles up.
 
The answer, unsurprisingly, falls into the category of "not wrong but".

If you make up enough of your own interpretations, assumptions, and definitions, you can come to any answer you want. And, again, it's not wrong, logically speaking. It's just utterly inane and draining for anyone making an honest effort to effectively communicate with you.

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