• photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    What if he’d hoped for 18000 spears? The total number of spears hoped for isnt stated, therefore we cannot assume that 6001 is exactly half of the total.

    • enkers@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      therefore we cannot assume that 6001 is exactly half of the total.

      Correct, all we can deduce is the bounds:

      Let x be the number of spears hoped for.

      6000 < x/2 < 6002

      12000 < x < 12004

      Edit: fixed error

      • rasensprenger@feddit.de
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        8 months ago

        Less than half and more than half imply strict inequality, so 6000 < x/2 < 6002, so 12001 <= x <= 12003

        • enkers@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          You’re absolutely correct, it should be “<”. Since he wished for such an odd number, I wouldn’t constrain x to integers though. Maybe he wished for “more than twelve thousand spears”?

    • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Why would you need to assume? If 6000<50% AND 6002>50%, he wishes for 12002 spears.

      Edit: dammit, that’s a lot of spears.

      • enkers@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        Because the number you’re reasoning about is the number of spears he wished for, not half the number he wished for, so mathematically, the logic holds for 3 different possible wished for integer values.

        To arrive at precisely 12002 you need to make a further assumption which nobody has explained so far.

        Also, a minor point, but that he wished for an integer number of spears is another assumption. Albeit a very reasonable seeming one, it’s an assumption none the less. He could have wished for 12 thousand and π spears, for example. And no, I have no idea what you’d do with that ~14% of a spear.

        If this were an SAT question, and upvotes correlated to what people were answering, well, the majority got this question wrong.

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        8 months ago

        You forgot a zero, but yeah. Also I think they’re talking about the movie, not the meme. In the context of the meme we can safely assume he meant 12,002 spears. (Let’s not assume fractional spears are a thing.)

    • cazsiel@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Anywhere between 6000.5 and 6001.5 could be exactly half the number of spears he was hoping for assuming he’s hoping for whole spears.

  • essell@beehaw.org
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    8 months ago

    If he was hoping for 18,000 then 6,000 is not less than half of what he hoped for. It is exactly half of what he had for.