With all the uncertainty and serious and sad news we hear on the daily (corona alert), a quality puzzle or a riddle would certainly bring some happiness.
One such riddle is this recent brain teaser which is being re-shared by people on social media and we had to check it out and see what it’s all about.
Those who dislike math won’t be the biggest fans; however, this math-themed puzzle is definitely one that demands from us to put our thinking caps on.
The Sneakily Difficult Math Brain Teaser: Can You Handle It?
Shared originally by Presh Talwalkar, a blogger who’s also behind the Mind Your Decisions puzzle website, this is a math problem which is quite harder than it seems.
Here’s what it asks from us: can you make 24 from the numbers 3, 3, 8, and 8? You can only use the +, -, x,/,(,) operations. And, you have to use all the four numbers.
At first, it seems like it’s an easily doable thanks to the numerous operations available for use and the numbers don’t look too hard to use.
However, it then hits you that in order to use these numbers to get 24, things become trickier. This is when you start to wish for the days when we learned third grade multiplication tables.
Back then, you just multiply 8 by 3 and you get 24! But, this riddle asks for harder mental effort.
This brain teaser is a real head scratcher because there’s only a single possible solution. And, it involves divisions and fractions, a couple of which can be challenging to solve on computers because of potential rounding errors.
Check the video below to learn more about one of the hardest puzzles on the internet:
Sources: