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A Publication Featuring The Information Services Technology of Maine State Government
| Volume V, Issue 11 | November 2002 |
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Occasionally, the wrong method can give the correct answer. For example, suppose you try to simplify the fraction 49/98 by canceling out the two 9s. If you know arithmetic, you will know that this is not the way to simplify fractions. But, it gives the correct answer, 4/8! Take the fraction 1a/ab = 1/b, where "a" and "b" are different digits. Cancel the "a"s and you will get the correct answer, by using an incorrect method.
For a chance at the pizza, find "a" and "b" so that you get the correct answer to the problem above by using the correct method for simplifying fractions. For an additional challenge (but no reward), find the other set of "a" and "b" which also give the correct answer, using the correct method, to the above problem.
Please e-mail Lester Dickey with your answer and your name, phone number, and the organization for which you work. Or call Barbara Buck at 624-9501. The winner will be drawn from all the correct entries and will receive a FREE pizza, either from CJ’s Pizza or from the EDOC Cafeteria. All answers must be in no later than the 14th of the month.
Last month's challenge brought 49 answers, with 46 correct. The winner, chosen by random drawing, is Dianne Stevens of the Board of Licensure in Medicine.
The answers to the October Challenge are: 1) 11 geese and 7 sheep, or 2) 13 geese and 5 sheep. Abraham Lincoln once asked a man, "How many legs will a sheep have if you call the tail a leg." "Five," was the reply. "You are mistaken," said Lincoln, "for calling a tail a leg does not make it so."
