Guest Posted May 23, 2008 Report Share Posted May 23, 2008 Subtraction - Back to the River Crossing Puzzles How many times can you subtract the number 2 from the number 32? Subtraction - solution Once. After you subtract 2 from 32, you subtract 2 from 30, from 28, and so on. Once. Didn't even look at the spoiler. If it says something different it's wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 23, 2008 Report Share Posted May 23, 2008 WARNING: the following answer is one of those "nitpicky" type answers, but I'm really just trying to inject some humor. Several people have suggested that the answer is infinite because you can subtract 2 from 32 once (32-2 = 30), and then you can do it again (32-2=30), and then you can do it again...as many times as you want. There's a flaw in this though - the question asks how many times YOU can subtract 2 from 32. It takes a discreet amount of time to do that calculation, although it is pretty quick. Given that the action takes a discreet amount of time, and YOU will only live for discreet amount of time, there is a limit to the number of times that YOU can subtract 2 from 32. Assuming that a person devotes the rest of their life to doing just this: It takes me about 2.5 seconds to say "thirty two minus two equals thirty" at a normal pace, but if you are a speed talker, or if you're doing it in your head, you can certainly do it faster. Even it's 1 second per transaction, it's unlikely that you'll live to be more than 150 years old, and anyone reading this riddle has to be at least 3 years old to actually be able to read it, so: (150-3)years x 365.25days x 24hours x 60minutes x 60 seconds = 4,638,967,200 times. So my answer to the question: roughly 4.5 billion times. You have a very mathematical sense of humour =) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 8, 2008 Report Share Posted June 8, 2008 A wise man once said: "A dog who chases his tail will be busy" (Frank<3) As apparent by all the posts to this question, he was absolutely correct. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 17, 2008 Report Share Posted June 17, 2008 it wouldn't matter because[32-2=30]or it could be[32-2=1],[32-2=3].you would still end up with one of the same #in it even if you were going as followed:32-2=30,30-2=28,and so forth.you should never create a math problem that will trigger your brain to where it can & will be confused!!!!thanks for reading this reply!!!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 27, 2008 Report Share Posted June 27, 2008 as many times as you want it will go in to negatives e.g -2 -4 -6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 12, 2008 Report Share Posted July 12, 2008 hehe, i like it =D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 12, 2008 Report Share Posted July 12, 2008 Funny one hahaha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 12, 2008 Report Share Posted July 12, 2008 it wouldn't matter because[32-2=30]or it could be[32-2=1],[32-2=3].you would still end up with one of the same #in it even if you were going as followed:32-2=30,30-2=28,and so forth.you should never create a math problem that will trigger your brain to where it can & will be confused!!!!thanks for reading this reply!!!! You should always makes problems like this one it makes sure your brain is in good shape Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 18, 2008 Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 only once per try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 31, 2008 Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 When you eat one cookie your tummy is no longer empty. When you put in 1 book, the bag is no longer empty. Geddit now? Actually cookies take some time to reach the stomach so, you can probably eat more than 1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 31, 2008 Report Share Posted July 31, 2008 WARNING: the following answer is one of those "nitpicky" type answers, but I'm really just trying to inject some humor. Several people have suggested that the answer is infinite because you can subtract 2 from 32 once (32-2 = 30), and then you can do it again (32-2=30), and then you can do it again...as many times as you want. There's a flaw in this though - the question asks how many times YOU can subtract 2 from 32. It takes a discreet amount of time to do that calculation, although it is pretty quick. Given that the action takes a discreet amount of time, and YOU will only live for discreet amount of time, there is a limit to the number of times that YOU can subtract 2 from 32. Assuming that a person devotes the rest of their life to doing just this: It takes me about 2.5 seconds to say "thirty two minus two equals thirty" at a normal pace, but if you are a speed talker, or if you're doing it in your head, you can certainly do it faster. Even it's 1 second per transaction, it's unlikely that you'll live to be more than 150 years old, and anyone reading this riddle has to be at least 3 years old to actually be able to read it, so: (150-3)years x 365.25days x 24hours x 60minutes x 60 seconds = 4,638,967,200 times. So my answer to the question: roughly 4.5 billion times. You totally sucked the fun out of it..., but it was a fun answer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 7, 2008 Report Share Posted August 7, 2008 well its pretty easy. i mean come on a two myear old could figure that out duhhh!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 7, 2008 Report Share Posted August 7, 2008 well its pretty easy. i mean come on a two myear old could figure that out duhhh!!! and if you got the answer wrong you need to go back to the 1st grade uhhhh....... yeah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 6, 2008 Report Share Posted September 6, 2008 This one is for the people who can sit for the rest of their lives writing any series of digits and still the answer would cease to exist... thats why its called INFINITY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 24, 2008 Report Share Posted September 24, 2008 zero times the question is how many times can "YOU" subtract....... etc etc in my case it is zero times i am lousy at arithmetic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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