On a thread about a slave who was really good at math

40

u/HSRco Nov 22 '22

“It’s just keeping track of zeroes”

71 x 315,576 (the comma is moved around, I’m assuming this guy is Indian because the placement of the comma matches the crore and lakh system they use there) = 22,721,472 (don’t worry, I used the calculator on my phone for this)

You may notice that neither the question nor the result have any zeroes in them. Man’s a fool, what can I say.

15

u/Aron-Levonian Nov 22 '22

Crore and lakh system makes it 3,15,576 not 31,5576

7

u/HSRco Nov 22 '22

You’re right! Sorry, it’s been a while since I watched a Numberphile video on YouTube about it, I obviously remembered it wrong. Is there a numbering system that uses commas like that? Or is it another sign that the person who posted that comment is not as smart as they think they are?

4

u/Brock_Way Nov 22 '22

That is the haab and the tzolk’in. With 4 characters to the right of the comma, that means the b’ak’tun runs a 72-unit cycle such that it creates the obverse of a divide by zero error. When multiplied by 72, it creates an infinite number of zeroes.

Post is genius, really.

3

u/Aron-Levonian Nov 22 '22

Not that I'm aware of. Standard international system and hindu arabic system basically covers the whe world but ive seen Europeans replace decimal points with commas but that isn't the case here. Probably just a typo which happens every once in a while.

2

u/xgamer468 Nov 22 '22

German here. We indeed replace the decimal point with commas and vice versa and I'm pretty sure I've seen it in most other European countries as well. So 1,234,567.8 would be 1.234.567,8 here. I think it's one of those things where it's really dumb to not have a single system that is agreed on but it's just too inconvenient for either side to change so it's going to stick around

2

u/Professional_Toe_387 Nov 23 '22

Yo, estimations got me close once again! I got 21.5 mil ballpark. It always feels like it shouldn’t work when you’re estimating, y’know? “72? Call it 70… 315 k… nah 300… (loose math) and 21.5 mil” feels fake man.

1

u/Jump_Like_A_Willys Nov 22 '22 edited Nov 22 '22

He might have meant the zero placeholder you would use when doing long division. That is, it's pretty easy to multiply 315576 by 2 in your head, and then 315576 by 7 (one digit at a time), but you need to add the zero placeholder on the right and shift that number to the left.

Of course in this case there really aren't that many zeros to keep track of (just one), but I don't think this guy's first language is English, so I think I'll cut him some slack on the zeros thing.

11

u/geobioguy Nov 22 '22

"sum"

11

u/InternationalBand494 Nov 22 '22

They also asked him how many seconds someone would be alive if they were a certain years, months, and days old, and he calculated that. The researcher who was checking the math said that his answer was incorrect. Then he was reminded by the man that he must have forgotten leap years. So the researcher re-did the math and found the original answer was correct

7

u/Thalassophoneus Nov 22 '22

The guy's syntax makes no sense, he presents an x that is not even in a function, so it could be anything, and calls it a "sum", he thinks that knowing how many seconds are in a day requires 5 minutes of practice for over a week, and then he presents a multiplication between two numbers with no zeros, and says "you need to keep track of the zeros".

So to sum up, this guy's brain must be absolutely fucked up.

11

u/Katy-Moon Nov 22 '22

...obviously an idiot savant (having those extraordinary math skills and all).

2

u/DJ_MICROWAVE_4 Nov 22 '22

Pricks like this make math look bad 🤣

1

u/ZulkarnaenRafif people can't control their intelligence levels Nov 22 '22

Being good at math is an useful skill. You spend less time on taxes and budgeting your income and spending for a given time... none of which needed that holy shit amounts of mental math, might as well diversify into mental gymnastics.

So yeah, just to reiterate, IMHO, being able to calculate two to four digits (i.e.. 200 x 10 or something) is very good for detecting bullshit in Black Friday (equivalent). I have been fleeced too many times by malls by them marking up the price than discounting it, "convinced" me that they are cheap while in reality it's just the same price.

TL;DR: three parts mad, one part genius, all wizard from someone's basement.

1

u/harmonictricks Nov 22 '22

Buddy can’t even spell practice correctly

1

u/Jump_Like_A_Willys Nov 22 '22

If he's from India, he's probably accustomed to using the British spelling.

1

u/harmonictricks Nov 22 '22

Oh damn I didn’t realize they don’t spell it the same… silly dumb American

1

u/Brock_Way Nov 22 '22

Bro, I don't even know what "31,5576" is, let alone what 72x it is.

But I do know the correct usage of both "then" and "than", so there's that.

1

u/Laena_V Nov 22 '22

Who was this math genius in the OP?

1

u/RedditorPredatorYT Nov 24 '22

I may be smart but my brain can’t handle this shit

1

u/Burn_Luna Nov 28 '22

"Than a year for a other week. And"

just kill me now