...What was the point of this?
Maybe you made a typo [see part in red], but your original post in relationship to my answer was
Hi,
This was a textbook problem. I came to a final conclusion.
Both answers are correct.
1)If you assume there is no hole, no elephant, no air leaving etc.. then there is no answer.
2) dont assume anything else exists.
Both are 100% correct, it just depends on context. In this case it was the textbook where you are taught to use ONLY the information given.
As far as your 'reworded' statements
...There are two solutions to the problem,
(1) You assume nothing else exists (eg. the balloon remain Spherical) From this you can work out solutions.
(2) You can assume there is a hole and other possibilities, so this "solution" is that there are no "answers"
They are both 100% correct. Then why is the second solution always ignored?...
you have been told the answer to that several times in several different ways.
Possibly you will understand the following which is a rewording of what you have already been told:
There are (at least) two answers to your question (as reworded in your post referenced above).
(1) In the formal world of students taking a test/being asked to solve a problem/... the second solution is not always ignored.
It is understood by those answering the questions that, at the general level of those asking questions in this forum, it is a (partial) answer to every question and thus it is unnecessary to state it. This is the world in which you were initially given answers because the forums here are generally for that kind of world (
those kinds of assumptions are made for the conditions under which questions are generally asked in this forum).
(2) In the informal (real) world and sometimes at a higher level than that assumed for questions in this particular forum (for example the answer containing a reference to a Ph.D. thesis),the answer to your question depends on what
assumptions you make but, as a general answer, part of the answer is 'Do pay attention to the unstated assumptions'. What this means is that there may be one answer, many answers, or no answer depending on what additional
assumptions you make. Thus, again, your second solution is not ignored. However it is incomplete (and both statements are not 100% correct).