...And Now for Some Math on Pi Day!
Written by BEAM CEO Dan Zaharopol
Curious about more math this Pi Day? Here’s the super serious, no-fun-at-all math test we included in this year’s Pi Day card:
Can we actually answer these questions? Let's approach it step by step.
Question 5 is a nice entry point. The answer isn’t A, because answer A requires Question 5’s answer to be a consonant, and A isn’t a consonant! The answer also isn't B, C, or D, because in all of those cases, Question 5's answer would be a consonant while stating that its answer isn’t a consonant. So the answer to 5 must be E.
By solving Question 5, we've also determined that the answer to Question 3 is a consonant, while the answer to Question 4 is a vowel.
So let’s now focus on Questions 2 and 3:
If the answer to 2 is A, then the answer to 3 is A.
If the answer to 2 is B, the answer to 3 is A or C.
If the answer to 2 is C, then the answer to 3 is A or E.
If the answer to 2 is D or E, the answer to 3 is A.
So the answer to Question 3 must be A, C, or E. But the answer can't be A or E (because it must be a consonant, from Question 5). That means the answer to Question 3 is C, and the answer to Question 2 is B!
Awesome! We're at:
Q1 - ?
Q2 - B
Q3 - C
Q4 - ?
Q5 - E
Because the answer to Question 5 is E, we know that the answer to Question 4 must be a vowel. The answer can't be E, or else Question 4 would be claiming that the answer B is the only letter that appears twice while its E is a repeat of Q5's E! So the answer to Question 4 must be A, and the answer C must appear twice in the test.
The only place left for another C is Question 1. So the answer to question 1 is also C, and now we have satisfied all of the requirements.
The final answer is:
Q1 - C
Q2 - B
Q3 - C
Q4 - A
Q5 - E
Wait a second... was that test actually... kind of fun?
Well, if you want even more fun, I based this little exam on the wonderful Self-Referential Aptitude Test by Jim Propp. Click the link to see his (more challenging by far!) test. Jim includes links to some other similar puzzles, and he also writes a lovely mathematical blog.
To read a super cool blog post from our CEO Dan Zaharopol on the infinite sums of pi, click here. There’s no shortage of exciting math for you to tackle this Pi Day!