I find the lack of intelligence depressing

[jojoemon]

At least part of the reason for so many people picking zero is that there are a whole lot of ones and a multiplication symbol next to a zero. It's like the easy way out to simply fall back on the old "anything times zero is zero" rule and ignore the plus signs. It's a trick question made to catch laziness, and I really doubt that most people on facebook are there to engage their brains.

 

[snowfi6916]

1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+0

which equals 16.

You missed the - 1 in there.

But that doesn't matter, because in no universe is it 0.

Touche. So the answer is 14 then. My bad.

 

[Womplord]

I happen to think mathematical ability is quite a good predictor of intelligence... At least for the logical thought side of things.

 

[The Bandit]

I did read what you said, you said the 0 is at the end. I said you don't just go from left to right. Try to be a little less condescending, it's unbecoming.

Yeah, you read one thing that I said, ignoring all the other words that were there for a purpose. No, they were not just filler, they actually meant something. So as I said, read peoples posts before quoting them.

What part of "You are wrong" do you not understand? The answer is not zero. You do not need parentheses/brackets in order for order of operations to apply. Multiplication/Division always comes before Addition/Subtraction. Always. Forever.

1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1-1+1+1+1+1+1*0

Copy and paste that into google and see what comes up. Google calculator, pick one, copy and paste it and see what the answer is.

EDIT: To address the topic a little more directly, I don't think people are stupid for getting this wrong, or that the apocalypse is coming, or that reality TV is ruining everything, or whatever other cynical thing people on the Internet always say. It does bother me when people like this guy ignore the rules of math just because they feel like it. If you get the answer wrong, and someone corrects you, say "Oh, geez, my bad. Totally forgot about my Aunt Sally and I didn't even see that stupid subtraction sign."

 

[thiosk]

Final answer: 0.

You can want something to be correct as much as you want.
You can even have it engraved on your tombstone.
But you will still be wrong.

 

[gbemery]

1. It's a quiz on facebook
2. It's not like financing a car or a test to get you into college. There isn't anything that makes you feel you NEED to double check the correctness of your answer. So I bet most people don't give a damn.
3. It isn't a valid way of obtaining statistics about intelligence. I might as well lose hope in humanity everytime someone misplaces their house/car keys etc.
4. It's probably due to the fact that since most people read from left to right that that skill, more than math, is in dominance when they are on facebook. Their mind set is not set to "oh what is the order of operations again?" That said their math skills for the time being go out the window. I bet if most just got in to the mindset of math first and retook it, knowing they were going to be tested by their answers, then they would do better.
5. I fell for it but then corrected myself.
6. It's a quiz on FACEBOOK

 

[Arkynomicon]

I have always been horrible at math. Probably because my mind tends to wander and lose focus.

I don't really remember most rules about it either except for some basic stuff.

 

[Raziel_Likes_Souls]

I still remember "socatoa" from high school trig, but I wouldn't presume that to make me

SINE! COSINE! TANGENT!



Also, this is just like those 48/2*(9+3) questions, where people argue over B/PEDMAS.

 

[Worr Monger]

Pffff... Order of Operations is for pussies..

I read from left to right... and I'll be damned if I'm not doing my math from left to right.

 

[GraveeKing]

Welcome to stupidity of facebook.
Then again it depends which rule of maths you're using. If you're using BODMASS/BIDMASS (whatever ya call it over there) you'd only times one of the 1's in the calculation by 0.
If you don't have that it's only simplistic that multiplying anything by 0 gets 0.
It could be worse and they said 1.

 

[TheViolentBalloon]

I don't think there's a clearly defined answer to this question, if it was written as say (1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1)-(1+1+1+1+1+1+1x0)=? that would be easy or 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1-1+1+1+1+1+1+(1x0)=? would be pretty simple too but the lack of any real separation makes it hard to tell what the answer would really be *unless perhaps I'm missing something here*.

Also I saw this question a few hours ago when I was on facebook, I assumed the answer would be zero because well for one thing, anyone who takes more than 2 seconds to look at this question has too much time on their hands because it would be natural to assume that all the signs before the multiplication are pluses. Secondly I think this is a rather over the top rant even if almost a million people got it wrong because simply it's easy to be confused when the question is not well defined.

It seems to be the equivalent of asking someone to spell "whether" at a spelling bee but not giving them any hints as to which type of "weather" you might be talking about.

 

[Master Kuja]

Intelligence =/= ignorance.

Grats, you just discovered people are fucking terrible at maths, most people are terrible at maths, I'm terrible at maths but I'm not an idiot.

I study at a criminal behavioural psychology at a university level and have never once dropped below a 75% mark for any of my assignments and yet I probably still wouldn't be able to answer that question accurately purely because I haven't done any sort of mathematics that involves calculation or order of operations in nearly 5 years now and haven't need to use it.

As such, I've forgotten how the process works, boo-hoo for never being a situation where I've needed it for the past half a decade.

This sort of thing really does wonders in making people look remarkably conceited.

 

[Baresark]

I think the idea that this can be some sort of indicator of intelligence is sad in itself. I am a carpenter, I use geometry every single day, but if you had to ask me to outline any theorems, we would have a problem.

I would simply say that a lot of people simply weren't paying that much attention. It's setup like a riddle because were that actually represented in a correct mathematical way, it would read: (1^15-1)+(1*0)... or something along those lines.

Here is one: Two brothers get paid $100 to till and plant a field, and decide to split that in half. Brother A can till his half in 40 minutes, but takes 70 minutes to plant, and brother be can till his half in 50 minutes but takes only 20 minutes to plant, how much money does brother b get? It's simple really, he gets $50. But most people will see all the numbers and give up, but the answer is in the first line of the riddle.

People just saw the multiply times zero, and saw it at the end, so they simply did it in order then multiplied that number times zero. People are lazy, and a bit stupid, but I don't think this means anything dramatic for the human race... and also, it's facebook... gimme a break.

 

[Scipio1770]

Guys guys guys, You're all forgetting one key truth here: This is the internet.

I'll bet you half of the answers are deliberate trolls.

 

[EvilRoy]

I don't get it...isn't 17 x 0 = 0? If 17 x 1 = 17? Cause its like 17...one time.

EDIT: I just noticed a minus. Its a trick question. Its just not noticing something. The OP is being incredibly pretentious about it. :/

Since there are no brackets, when you follow bedmas you perform (division/multiplication) first and then perform (addition/subtraction)

So first you multiply
1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1-1+1+1+1+1+1+1*0
-->
1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1-1+1+1+1+1+1+ 0 =

And then add&subtract

= 14

Not trying to be a smartass, but it's one of those things...

 

[Xero Scythe]

Lack of mathematical prowess is small factor in the broad range of "intelligence". Most people forget about PEMDAS when they enter the real world. Way to generalize.

no. you can't do simple day-to-day equations without this, it's such a basic and important part of math that you don't ever forget.

Still, I like problems such as these. It's like that 2+2/2 is three, not two. It's a nice little joke that's humorous of a few seconds, then is quickly forgotten.