How High Is The Table? Chinese School Riddle Got Even Top Students In Trouble.
Internet users around the world grappled with a question which, according to some sources, was offered to elementary school students in China . Despite the apparent simplicity, most people who have tried to find a solution have failed.
The text reads: “Find the height of the table, knowing that the distance between the head of the cat on the table and the turtle on the ground is 170 cm, while the distance between the head of the turtle on the table and the head from the cat to the ground is 130 cm “.
How high is the table?
#1
Solution
#2
image credit: maxpixel.net
After the publication of the riddle, the experts tried to give an unequivocal solution to the test – given the many hypotheses that emerged from the attempts of Internet users!
Two types of reasoning can be used: algebraic and visual.
Algebraic method :
Looking at the first figure on the left, you can extrapolate this equation: h. cat + h. table – h. turtle = 170. (h. is for “height”)
Similarly, from the second figure: h. turtle + h. table – h. cat = 130.
In algebra, two equations can be added: since h. cat and h. turtle have opposite signs in both equations, they cancel each other out. The resulting equation will be 2 (h. Table) = 300, from which we arrive at h. table = 150.
Visual method :
The second way to solve the question is to reason visually: imagine that you can superimpose the two images, making the base of the first table (the one on the left) coincide with the surface of the second (in other words, placing the image on the left above the one on the right). This arrangement makes it possible to visually understand that the sum of the heights 130 cm and 170 cm corresponds exactly to the height of the two superimposed tables, that is to say 300 cm. You can now easily get the height of a single table by dividing the value by two.
Did this seem like an impossible question to you?
Watch the video for a more detailed explanation!
source used: China Focus / Twitter