this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2026
69 points (97.3% liked)
Funny
16258 readers
2210 users here now
General rules:
- Be kind.
- All posts must make an attempt to be funny.
- Obey the general sh.itjust.works instance rules.
- No politics or political figures. There are plenty of other politics communities to choose from.
- Don't post anything grotesque or potentially illegal. Examples include pornography, gore, animal cruelty, inappropriate jokes involving kids, etc.
Exceptions may be made at the discretion of the mods.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I am so confused on their thought process. Like, I understand making mistakes, wrong operations, misunderstanding the question... but where did their numbers even come from?
1.32 + 1.42?
Where did the 1.42 come from?
And 43.80? Where is that from? Is it from the 42? Then where did the additional 1.80 come from?
So I thought about this and I think it is actually
1.32
₁42
And the small 1 before 42 is that 1 you make when you add the tens digit in an addition. However there should not be another tens digit involved, and also 0.32+0.42 is 0.74 and not 0.64, and also I think this started as a multiplication.
Regarding the 1.80, I also thought about this but I got no fucking clue.
When they did the 4x3 (=12) operation they didnt carry the 1 over to the next column and instead added it to the 2 (2+1=3) when they wrote it at the bottom.
Best I can figure is that the 1.42 was written as 42 with a superscript ¹ fron the line below (as a tens marker when adding 6 and 8)
43.80 might have come from multiplying 1.32 by 4 but forgetting to do the 3?
They did 4x3 is 3, instead of 12. This is how they ended up $9 short on the final answer.
I'm guessing they did the 4 x 3, noticed they had to carry, accidentally wrote the carry in the wrong column, then immediately went and added that carry to their leftover 2, thus only counting 3 in total.
I think it started as 1.32 x 42, which they tried to solve as 2 x 1.32 (2.64) + 40 x 1.32 (they started correctly with .80 + ..., but I can't figure out how they mangled the second half). Anyway, 2.64 + .80 carries 1, which is the small 1 to the left of the 42.