I0020,4I80

Houston, TX

2 June, 2015

Many people think of themselves as reincarnated Einsteins. The reason we revere him so much is because he was one of a kind. Einstein looked at problems and considered POSSIBILITIES before jumping to conclusions. 

Take, for instance, this apparently simple equation that has been circulating throughout social media.                   0+50x1-60-60x0+10 = X, solve for X.

I think Albert Einstein would have looked at this problem and declared that it is subject to interpretation - that there were TWO possible correct answers!

While it has been written in many places that Einstein failed at mathematics, this turned out to be completely false. Of course he excelled in math! This means that you can't believe everything you read. 

The reason there are TWO CORRECT ANSWERS here is because of the way the problem is written.  *PEMDAS notwithstanding, there is a purpose for parentheses, etc. There is, indeed a "grammar" in writing mathematical problems to avoid confusion, and wrong answers.

I observed a heated argument on this very problem, and I tried solving it - getting two answers, depending on how I read it.

This discussion reminds me of a story an old Jordanian friend of mine once told me.

A chemist kept a jar of some poisonous substance on a shelf near the kitchen of his house. He labeled it  "سوم" soom, which in Arabic means poison. The kitchen was nearby, and a pesky fly sat on the jar label, and messed on it. What the fly unknowingly did was change سوم (poison) into شؤم shoom, meaning garlic!

One of the cooks was sent to the cupboard to get some garlic. He spied the jar with "Garlic" written on it, and added its contents into the evening's dinner being prepared. 

Of course, the members of the household met an untimely demise, all on account of a fly!

The moral of the story is, of course, watch your spelling and punctuation. 

Even a fly can change poison into garlic.

The same can be said for math

I0020,4I80

On a trip to London a few years ago, I had a normal layover, eating in a quaint pub/restautant

The next morning I found under my hotel door a bill for "Room Service." I thought nothing further about it until I went downstairs to check out. I handed the bill to the desk clerk, but instead of getting out a credit card, I simply made a notation at the bottom of the check thusly:

"I00204I80."

Only this and nothing more.

The desk clerk, who was from Poland, gazed upon my ciphers with a curious face indeed. She walked away, and soon enough, after a meeting with a few of her colleagues at the cash register, my young waitress returned with the Front Desk Manager who addressed me politely:"Sir, we were wondering about this ciphering on the bottom of your check. Is this perhaps meant as your hotel room number or your Marriott Rewards number?" he asked, continuing, "because it does not match any such room number or Rewards number in our system."

"No, Sir," I replied matter-of-factly. "This is just the explanation as to why I shall not pay my check."

"Sir," the manager said, a look of slight concern crossing an otherwise poker face. "I"m afraid I must insist you pay your bill."

"Here is my explanation, if you'll only read it." I replied, pointing again to the numbers, written boldly on the check: I00204I80.

It was at that instant that I realized a comma was missing, so I apologized for the punctuation error and corrected it forthwith. My cipher now read:"I0020,4I80."

The manager picked up the check and examined the number closely, smiled, and said: "Very well, Sir., there will be no charge." With that he bid me and the rest of my crew a good day and a Bon Voyage.

Walking through the hotel lobby, a coworker asked me what that whole exchange was about. Once again, I wrote the numbers on a napkin in the exact way that they appeared on my check.

"Good God, man, are you daft?" my friend commented, totally bewildered. 

"Is this your Marriott Rewards number or some sort of CODE?"

"Well, well, well," I chuckled, "we were just discussing numbers, and how they enter in every area of our lives." I explained.

"What does THAT have to do with anything?"

"EVERYTHING! This is my explanation in numbers of why I should not have to pay.

I0020,4I80

"What the deuce does that mean?"

With that I read the sentence thusly:

"I aught naught two owe, for I ate nothing!"

The manager agreed, and that was that.

I worked the trip home with my usual enthusiasm. Getting the normal beverage requests for coffee and tea, I soon came to a gentleman doing some heavy reading in a book on advanced mathematics. I asked what he'd care to drink, and he replied, without so much as an upward glance: "coffee two equals."

I stood there for a few moments until finally the gentleman finally looked up at me and asked: "What are you waiting for?"

"You said 'coffee two equals...' and I'm just waiting for you to complete your equation!"

*Math is solved left to right but only in the following order: PEMDAS = parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction.