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Matchstick Equation


rookie1ja
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Matchstick Equation - Back to the Matchstick Puzzles

Move one matchstick to get the correct equation.

Edit: the answer is correct only to 2 decimal digits (since equals sign has to be kept).

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This old topic is locked since it was answered many times. You can check solution in the Spoiler below.

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Matchstick Equation - solution

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  • 1 month later...

To be anal, I must point out that this only works to two digits of Pi. As soon as you hit 3 digits, the answer is wrong.

22 / 7 ~=

3.1428571428571428571428571428571

Pi ~=

3.1415926535897932384626433832795

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You could actually just remove one of the matchsticks from the divide sign and place it beside the other 2 on the right side of the equals sign. This allows for the most Correct answer possible.

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  • 2 weeks later...
You could also remove one of the matchsticks from the X in the top part of the equation, turning it into XIIII/VII=II (14/7=2).

the problem with your solution is that it is no longer a roman numeral. 4 in roman is IV, not IIII.

You could actually just remove one of the matchsticks from the divide sign and place it beside the other 2 on the right side of the equals sign. This allows for the most Correct answer possible.

23/7 doesn't equal 3.

How about a non-equal sign?

I have to agree with this solution as being the best answer.

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Thanks LarryHL for the correction. I was in a hurry to post my answer and get back to work that I overlooked the final answer, lol. I did however come up with another one that you might agree will work. adjust the angle of the top match that helps make up the equals sign so that we end up with 23/7 > 2.

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that does seem ideal but by definition of an equation that answers fails to satisfy the requirement that the answer too must also be an equation. what you provided is an inequality which contrasts from an equation. if your answer is acceptable as is many other possible answers which turns the equal sign to a inequation sign "?"

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Actually aesculapius, these are all accepted symbols to make up a well formed equation.

< less than

> greater than

>= greater than or equal to

<= less than or equal to

!= not equal to

= equal to

~= approximately equal to

And the reason the XIIII / VII = II is not correct is because you would actually have XIII / VII = II or X/III / VII = II. If you move the other match to be straight then you have moved 2 matches. XIII is another way to write X-III, so one answer would be X-III/VII = II and this is not a valid equation. 7/7 is not 2. The other answer would come out as (10/3)/ 7 = 2 but

is doesn't equal 2 but rather 0.476 (it actually goes on beyond 3 decimal places). I might be a little off on that, i did it real quick and might have missed a rule on that one lol.

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  • 3 weeks later...

OMG. I totally hate this site. Every day its something new that doesn't make any sense. Why don't you guys come up with some real brain teasers or copy some from a book or something. This is retarded. It does not equal pi. Thats as good as saying:

XXII

------ = III because we'll just round that one down pretty hard core to make it work

VII

or

XXII

---- = II because were just gonna truncate that .75 so that this works.

VIII

this is dumb; we cant just go ahead and round down or truncate whenever we feel like it just to make a sorry attempt at a brain teaser. Common, just try a little bit. Just a little.

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OMG. Every day its something new that doesn't make any sense. Why don't you guys come up with some real brain teasers or copy some from a book or something. This is retarded. It does not equal pi. Thats as good as saying:

XXII

------ = III because we'll just round that one down pretty hard core to make it work

VII

or

XXII

---- = II because were just gonna truncate that .75 so that this works.

VIII

this is dumb; we cant just go ahead and round down or truncate whenever we feel like it just to make a sorry attempt at a brain teaser. Common, just try a little bit. Just a little.

Totally agree. No wonder kids have trouble understanding Algebra when we treat the equal sign like this!

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Actually aesculapius, these are all accepted symbols to make up a well formed equation.

< less than

> greater than

>= greater than or equal to

<= less than or equal to

!= not equal to

= equal to

~= approximately equal to

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  • 2 weeks later...

XXlll/Vll different to l

I couldn't find the simbol Different to, so I just took one match from the result and put it diagonal on the =. The result is a truth.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I got it...how about XXXI = XXXXI! I know I moved a whole bunch of matchsticks...but 31 does equal 41...if you round the right side down by 10! I love this kind of brain teaser...give me more! I am going to use pi = 22/7 or something close to that in all my calculations from now on!

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