Geek Soap Box

Without question, the Internet has proven itself to be a magical fountain of bottomless knowledge and human know-how.  I don’t think it’s an underestimate to say that more learning has been facilitated via the limitless collaboration and exchange provided by the global medium in the past decade than perhaps in any other period in human history.  If we ever achieve the so-called “singularity” and evolve past these mortal coils to true higher enlightenment, the Internet will have likely played a key role in shaping those events.

This is not one of those times.

It didn’t exist back when I was lugging those heavy textbooks uphill (both ways…that’s why the neighborhood is known as “Jackson Heights!”) to and from school, but undoubtedly if it had I would have attempted to use the Internet to solve the riddles of everyday, boring homework so that I could finish more quickly and thus have more time for Super Mario Brothers.  Today, the Web is awash with kids and parents alike looking for answers to perplexing, trick questions that would stumble even the best of us and leave teachers all over twirling their evil handlebar moustaches in glee.  Which leads me to our story.  My friend called me for help with a math question that had stumped both her and her daughter.

“What two decimals are equivalent to 0.68?”

Huh?  For starters, the question is a tad on the vague side.  Does this mean two decimals that add to the number in question?  Some other operation?  After a little deliberation, we decided that, in fact, this was a lesson about how appending zeroes to the end of a decimal do not affect the mathematical value of the original number.  Meaning, 0.68 is the same as 0.680 and 0.6800.  Problem solved!

Just to be safe, though, I looked around the Internet, and darn it if that exact question wasn’t the subject of more than a few Wikis and Yahoo! Answers pages; I guess teachers all use the same source material.  Many different solutions were put forth, but in the end the answers we came up with seem to be the consensus everwhere.

Then I saw this one stab at answering the question:

It’s been awile since I did this math but I think the answers are .34 & .17. Convert the decimal to a fraction which would be 68/100. That’s not the end because you can divide by a common demonator which we can start with 2. Divide by 2 and get 34/50 which is .34 in decimal, divide by 2 again which would be 17/25 which is .17 decimal and from there you can’t go any lower without changing the value. To check your answers put 34/50 times x/100 and cross multiply 34×100=3400 and divide by 50=68.

Wow.  I cannot even begin to wrap my own brain around the mathematical hurdles the author jumps to arrive at the conclusion.  Suffice to say, though, she offered her own unique theorem that conclusively proved 0.68 in fact also equals 0.34 and 0.17.  That sound you may have heard is the entire space-time continuum collapsing upon itself, as in one paragraph all forms of identities, values, and equations have been negated.  Up is now down.  Black is now white.  1,000,000 is no different than 3,487 (this last one will particularly come in handy when I attempt to pay my bills).

Great try, but I am going to go pull the covers over my head now and pretend this day never happened.