# Cop out

#### foobar

##### New member

This “We don’t help with homework” answer seems like acop out. Any worksheet would be due in days. An answer would come too late tohelp. I wonder if they were just unable to solve this.

As far as the second answer stating “Since, in decimal arithmetic and undernormal conditions, none of the stated equalities is actually true, it mighthelp if you provided the missing contextual information” I have to wonder ifthis person actually read the problem. It is apparent that the solution (if there is one) will be for theoperation, or series of operations, represented by the asterisk which wouldmake all three preliminary statements true. No one can really think they mean two times 6 equals 4!

My 7th grader got this problem two weeks ago.(Her sheet is already turned in by the way.)
I don’t believe there is a solution.
I havetried many different approaches. The change determined by * cannot simply belinear. I have had no luck tryingcomplex functions in place of * or using exponential changes (both integers andfractional.)
I broughtit to work and showed it to a few of our engineers. No one has solved this.
One fellowsuggested plotting all three sets of numbers (2,6,4 4,1,7 and 8,3,10 to definea plane and backing the 5*5 out of it to arrive at an answer. This is verycreative but too brute force and beyond the scope of a 7th grademath class.

Thesolution came back from school as two. (i.e.5*5=2)
That doesn’thelp in defining the function taking place as *.

If anyonecan show me what operations are occurring for * I would like to hear from you.

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#### stapel

##### Super Moderator
Staff member

This “We don’t help with homework” answer seems like a cop out.
1. The poster said that "we don't do your homework" There is a big difference between not cheating and not helping.

2. I'm sorry that you view any request to contribute to the discussion (or else the advisory that we don't cheat) to be some sort of statement that this homework-help resource does not provide any help with homework. As you learned from the "Read Before Posting" thread that you read before posting, the volunteers do indeed provide assistance. What we don't do is the actual homework.

Any worksheet would be due in days. An answer would come too late to help.
Are you saying that you expected the volunteers here to provide complete worked solutions, on demand, and then e-mail them or fax them to you, in order to get them to you "in time"? :shock:

I wonder if they were just unable to solve this.
This sounds very much like the time-honoured "you didn't give me the answer because you're too dumb to figure it out yourself" gambit. One expects shortly to be challenged to "give me the answer to prove you're not dumb, and I'll compare yours to mine" and "remember to show all of your workings, too!" One hopes not; but how many times have we heard this?

As far as the second answer stating “Since, in decimal arithmetic and undernormal conditions, none of the stated equalities is actually true, it mighthelp if you provided the missing contextual information” I have to wonder ifthis person actually read the problem. It is apparent that the solution (if there is one) will be for theoperation, or series of operations, represented by the asterisk which wouldmake all three preliminary statements true. No one can really think they mean two times 6 equals 4!
And this was the point of what the poster said. The equations, as posted, were not true, so something else must be going on. Once one has studied mathematics for a while, one learns that there are often very many ways that puzzles can be answered.

However, "the" answer is the one expected by the instructor. And that instructor likely provided instructions. Even had said instructions not been provided in written form on the take-home assignment, likely the student's efforts would have highlighted recent topics of study. This would have provided wonderfully helpful information to the volunteers. This is why "Read Before Posting" specified that this information needs to be provided, and why the one poster very nicely requested it.

II havetried many different approaches. The change determined by * cannot simply belinear. I have had no luck tryingcomplex functions...
You've been working with complex-valued functions, poles in the complex plane, etc? Is this something that your seventh-grader recently covered in her algebra class?

If you'd like to discuss this topic, please feel free to reply with a listing of your efforts, based on topics of recent study in your child's classroom. Thank you.

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#### Ishuda

##### Elite Member

This “We don’t help with homework” answer seems like acop out. Any worksheet would be due in days. An answer would come too late tohelp. I wonder if they were just unable to solve this.

As far as the second answer stating “Since, in decimal arithmetic and undernormal conditions, none of the stated equalities is actually true, it mighthelp if you provided the missing contextual information” I have to wonder ifthis person actually read the problem. It is apparent that the solution (if there is one) will be for theoperation, or series of operations, represented by the asterisk which wouldmake all three preliminary statements true. No one can really think they mean two times 6 equals 4!

My 7th grader got this problem two weeks ago.(Her sheet is already turned in by the way.)
I don’t believe there is a solution.
I havetried many different approaches. The change determined by * cannot simply belinear. I have had no luck tryingcomplex functions in place of * or using exponential changes (both integers andfractional.)
I broughtit to work and showed it to a few of our engineers. No one has solved this.
One fellowsuggested plotting all three sets of numbers (2,6,4 4,1,7 and 8,3,10 to definea plane and backing the 5*5 out of it to arrive at an answer. This is verycreative but too brute force and beyond the scope of a 7th grademath class.

Thesolution came back from school as two. (i.e.5*5=2)
That doesn’thelp in defining the function taking place as *.

If anyonecan show me what operations are occurring for * I would like to hear from you.
Well which is it "My 7th grader got this problem two weeks ago.(Her sheet is already turned in by the way.)" or "I don’t believe there is a solution." Or are you saying that your 7th grader said there was no solution or, possibly, handed in the incorrect answer as expected by you and so had the problem wrong.

BTW: Since you don't provide any rules, the answer is 90341865901.

#### Subhotosh Khan

##### Super Moderator
Staff member
42... that's all....

#### foobar

##### New member
The pomposity astounds ... though it really shouldn't.

The word help has no place in this websites name. It is a collection of individuals who try to improve their perceived self worth by attempting to attack those asking. Oddly the confusions they claim to perceive are quite clear. At best it is a method to cover for their inability to solve the problem and show the work. At worst they really cannot decipher the meaning stated in such a simply worded problem. Stereotypical imagery from the movie springs to mind.
Well which is it "My 7th grader got this problem two weeks ago.(Her sheet is already turned in by the way.)" or "I don’t believe there is a solution." Or are you saying that your 7th grader said there was no solution or, possibly, handed in the incorrect answer as expected by you and so had the problem wrong.

BTW: Since you don't provide any rules, the answer is 90341865901.

#### ksdhart

##### Full Member
For whatever little it's worth at this point, I Googled a snippet of the problem and found many other sites where this exact same question had been asked. One of them has an answer provided, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how the person came to this line of thinking. They say:

2*6 = 4 ... which is 12-(2+6)
4*1 = 7 ... which is 12-(4+1)
8*3 = 1 ... which is 12-(8+3)

So,
5*5 = 2 ... which is 12-(5+5)

#### Ishuda

##### Elite Member
The word help has no place in this websites name. It is a collection of individuals who try to improve their perceived self worth by attempting to attack those asking. Oddly the confusions they claim to perceive are quite clear. At best it is a method to cover for their inability to solve the problem and show the work. At worst they really cannot decipher the meaning stated in such a simply worded problem. Stereotypical imagery from the movie springs to mind.
You get help and then cry about the answer while refusing to show what you have tried. O.K. here's a little more help:

You have an answer, see above, which meets the criterion and the function behind the answer could be
x*y=f(x,y;d)= a+(x-2)*(y-6)*(b+(x-4)*(y-1)*(c+(x-8)*(y-3)*d))
where
a=$$\displaystyle \dfrac{4}{1}$$
b=$$\displaystyle \dfrac{-3}{10}$$
c=$$\displaystyle \dfrac{7}{120}$$
The value of d could then be chosen to reflect what answer you want for 5*5. For example, if d = 1254748137 + 41/90 then f(5,5,d)=90341865901

If you don't like that answer and prefer some other answer then there is a d so that

f(5,5,d)=2
or
f(5,5,d)=5
or
f(5,5,d)=15
or
f(5,5,d)=51.123456789

Of course there is only an infinite number of other functions which would meet your criterion as you have given it but then I'm sure you already knew that since it has been pointed out to you several times already.

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#### Subhotosh Khan

##### Super Moderator
Staff member
The word help has no place in this websites name. It is a collection of individuals who try to improve their perceived self worth by attempting to attack those asking. Oddly the confusions they claim to perceive are quite clear. At best it is a method to cover for their inability to solve the problem and show the work. At worst they really cannot decipher the meaning stated in such a simply worded problem. Stereotypical imagery from the movie springs to mind.
Note to Ishuda:

Ushuda ignore such vacuous remark from people who can only flap their jaws (fingers in this case) instead of using their time to help others.

My grandfather used say: "You should beat a pile of \$hit at your risk - you are going to raise whole lot of stink"

He was so right.....

#### Subhotosh Khan

##### Super Moderator
Staff member
foobar
jargon
Another common metasyntactic variable; see foo. Hackers do *not*
generally use this to mean FUBAR in either the slang or jargon sense.
According to a german correspondent, the term was coined during
WW2 by allied troops who could not pronounce the german word
"furchtbar" (horrible, terrible, awful).
:lol:
"furchtbar" - is that the source of "fruit-cake"? Somewhere I had read that the X-mas favorite did come from Germany!!