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Title: Live action maths debating... Post by Noke Lieu on Jul 9th, 2009, 5:54am A man buys a horse for $20. He sells the horse for $30. He buys it back for $40. He sells it for $50 Did he make money, or lose money? DId he break even? If he did make money, how much did he make? If he lost how much did he lose? xxxxxxxxxx Now, I'm not really asking such a question here. It's something that I picked up listening to a podcast on 'maths anxiety'. I recently asked a bunch of not-particularly-mathsy-types this question and then watch them dissect it and fold it and trap them selves up in their own thinking. It was awesome to see it in action. Don't give them the answer. Have a try. You might like to mention what you observe? |
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Title: Re: Live action maths debating... Post by towr on Jul 9th, 2009, 6:46am There is something to be said for the perspective that [hide]because of the second step he lost $10[/hide]. Just a rearrangement of terms, of course. Which is a lot more fun with infinite sums ;) |
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Title: Re: Live action maths debating... Post by Grimbal on Jul 9th, 2009, 2:23pm I'm not sure. He sold for $30 a horse that is worth $20 and then bough a horse that is worth $40. He has I am sure a Goldman-Sachs accountant would see it like that. ;D * or actually invested |
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Title: Re: Live action maths debating... Post by BenVitale on Jul 9th, 2009, 5:46pm You beat me to it! I was going to post gems in financial dealings. The problem you posted was one of the problems I had in mind. You could use 2 approaches that would give you two different answers. The first approach gives you $10 but the second one gives you $20. This problem is one of the tricks used to cook up the books. |
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