’40 – 32 ÷ 2 = 4!’ – Why the Answer Is Correct?

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How would you answer if you are asked to solve the equation above?


40 – 32 ÷ 2 = ?

Elementary school student: “4!”

A right-brained person: “Hmmmm… Maybe difficult for you…”

A left-brained person: “Well done! Correct!”


When you solve an equation like this in standard form, you divide numbers first.

Therefore,
40 – (32 ÷ 2) = 40 – 16 = 24
and the answer should be 24.

So, it is understandable that a right-brained person thinks the answer of the elementary school student is wrong.
However, why a left-brained person think that the answer is correct?

Actually ‘4!’ is correct!

Did you get it? If you have good intuition, you may already have gotten the answer! It is a key that the elementary school student has written down ‘4!’. The ‘!’ symbol you should have seen before.

Yes, this is ‘4!’, 4 factorial!

4! = 4 × 3 × 2 × 1 = 24

Therefore,
40 – 32 ÷ 2 = 4!

is a correct answer.
So, a left-brained person was impressed the elementary school student had understood factorials. I see!

Well, this maybe a figure of speech to explain easily the differences between right brain and left brain. But if you get the meaning, you would understand the whole story, would’t you?! 🙂 ‘Good question to think outside the box!’, ‘I smirked at people who didn’t get the answer 😛’, ’So it doesn’t work if you say the answer, isn’t it’, ‘Left brainers are incredible!’, people’s reactions.

This kind of questions are tempting to tell people, isn’t it? Did you get the answer immediately?

 
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