J
Jake H
Guest
I have a friend who gave us this riddle in math class the other day:
There are 9 elephants over there, 3 over here, and 1,000,000 elsewhere, how many elephants are there? (This is just an example, I can't remember the exact numbers in any of the examples he gave.)
And the answer would be some strange number like 7, not 1,000,012. He said the trick isn't in the counting. And he calls it the Ancient Chinese Counting Trick.
He would give us more questions that were similar, but the answer never added up right.
I'm really confused, and I just can't understand this riddle.
Does anyone have experience with this riddle or a similar riddle, and can answer my question to why the numbers don't add up?
There are 9 elephants over there, 3 over here, and 1,000,000 elsewhere, how many elephants are there? (This is just an example, I can't remember the exact numbers in any of the examples he gave.)
And the answer would be some strange number like 7, not 1,000,012. He said the trick isn't in the counting. And he calls it the Ancient Chinese Counting Trick.
He would give us more questions that were similar, but the answer never added up right.
I'm really confused, and I just can't understand this riddle.
Does anyone have experience with this riddle or a similar riddle, and can answer my question to why the numbers don't add up?