the TV3 and the production company Mastiff has done seriously in the nettles, and it may prove to have had a direct impact on who Monday evening, raising arms in triumph and secure the prize of 500,000 taxpayer dollars in ‘Robinson Expedition’.
In the season’s penultimate section, participants were following a major’s energy signature to solve the equation, which sounded as follows:
‘=2-4/5/2x3x5+2-3/7+2/7-7×5’
As the viewer, so the mirror must be counted from right to left. The solution was the participant of Nis, as soon as, when he found the ‘1’ as the upshot, which, according to Jakob Kjeldbjerg was correct.
Thus he secured, not just ‘Robinson’-the trophy, but also an essential protection in the season’s last monarchy, so teammates could not vote for him. The triumph made him, in other words the final.
the Problem is, that the equation did not provide 1. It establishes associate professor Asger Day Törnquist from the Department of Mathematical sciences at Copenhagen University. He has not even seen the program, but when he is presented the equation from the program, he is not in doubt.
‘Immediately the equation of the image does not give the 1’, he writes in an email to Ekstra Bladet.
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He says that in mathematics the world to start with to perform multiplication and division first then multiply and divide. Then go to the plus and the minus, and it gives some problems, since the equation can provide two different outcomes depending on how one reads it. But in any case it can never give 1.
‘the Problem here is that the division is not what we call ‘associative’, which means that the equation can not be read unambiguously without inserting parentheses. Fx is (4/5)/2=4/10 while 4/(5/2)=8/5. Therefore, it can 4/5/2 be read in two ways with different result’, he explains and adds.
‘I would therefore guess that the program has not made clear what the orders are, and that you do not has made itself clear that division is not associative, and therefore one arrives at a wrong result’.
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Would you let a student pass with the answer 1?
‘No, I would not give a student points for.’
He explains that there is a fundamentally wrong mindset to calculate the equation one number at a time, which is the only way, the solution can be 1.
‘If we take something as simple as 3+6/3, so would a mathematician think that this gives 5 because 6/3 is to be calculated first, and provides 2, and then we need to calculate 3+2. If instead you follow your ‘calculator-method’, so one will get (3+6)/3, which is 9/3=3. But it is for a mathematician wrong.’
TV3’s programredaktør on ‘the Robinson Expedition’, Jesper Kynde, explains that the program has not set the equation up as a classical equation, but it is true that the equation gives a different result if you do.
– He is absolutely right. I’m not going out with him, when it comes to mathematics. We explained, however, clear in the programme that you have to count left to right, and that we use ‘calculator-method’. We do everything we can to ensure that the participants have understood it, and it has the. It is clear as day, and the Nis expect the the also out to be 1, while the other participants also get it to the 1, he says, and continues:
– We don’t see it as a classical equation, for if we did, it is true that the equation no opinion. But it has been clear, and there is none of our participants who have misunderstood it, so therefore it has not had a negative impact for the participants, he says further.
the Challenge in this type of calculations is the ‘priority’ or order. You have to start with to perform multiplication and division first, and then perform the plus and the minus.
Immediately the equation of the image does not give 1. To explain I will call the string 4/5/2x3x5 of Y (large Y). So is the equation 2-Y+2-3/7+2/7-7×5=4-Y-1/7-35.
The only way the string can give 1, is therefore, if Y helps to get 1/7 to go out. This leads us to the problem with to read the expression behind the Y.
the Problem here is that the division is not what we call ‘associative’, which means that the equation can not be read unambiguously without inserting parentheses. Fx is (4/5)/2=4/10 while 4/(5/2)=8/5. Therefore, it can 4/5/2 be read in two ways with different results. However, let us assume, in order to get around this problem, / should be read as ‘multiply by the inverse’, and which must be read from left to right. So is Y=4/5/2x3x5=4x(1/5)x(1/2)x3x5=4x3x5x(1/5)x(1/2)=60/10=6.
If it is the correct reading of the equation, then we get from the above to 2-Y+2-3/7+2/7-7×5=4-Y-1/7-35=4-6-1/7-35, which is absolutely not 1.
I would therefore guess that the program has not made clear what the orders are, and that you do not has made itself clear that division is not associative, and therefore gives an incorrect result. But I have not seen the program!
Regards,
–Asger
