jimbo
Retired Mod
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2000
- Messages
- 3,482
- Reaction score
- 1
- Points
- 0
- Age
- 74
- My Satellite Setup
- Sky HD, TM6800HD, Manhattan Plaza ST550 and TM1500 CI+. 1.0m dish and 36v motor, Panasonic DVD HDD recorder and Panasonic video/DVD recorder. Sony G800 HD TV stand/surround system + Sony KDL40W2000. Infinity USB, Elvis, CAS1, CAS2.
- My Location
- Greater London
Best brains baffled as ITV quiz says two plus two is 506
ITV COULD be ·fined after broadcasting a mathematics challenge on late"night television which some of the country's best brains are unable to solve.
The puzzle was broadcast on the Make Your Play programme which starts at midnight and is aimed at poor sleepers and those who have been drinking.
The on-screen question headed "Add the pence" listed: two pounds, 25p, £1.47, 16p and fifty pence and offered a prize of £30,000.
Three-and-a-half hours after the programme started, the host announced the answer was 506 and that no one had won, but did not explain the solution which an ITV source said was standard practice since "it would ruin the game for some people".
But mathematics professors, the high IQ. organisation Mensa and the lateral thinking pioneer Edward de Bono all failed to come up with a solution.
Only the cryptanalysts of Bletchley Park, who helped end the Second World War by breaking Nazi ciphers, were able to suggest an answer. But ITV said the code breakers were wrong and the solution was not that complicated.
Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, Marcus du Sautoy, showed the puzzle to other lecturers.
He said: "No one can fmd a good reason for the answer being 506. That's not to say that we haven't missed some clever perspective but there was a growing sense among those I talked to that this could be a scam.
"Anyone adding up the pence in the obvious way gets to 438. So there is a missing 68 pence." -
The regulator Ofcom said it was investigating 20 complaints against the show.
So..... members, do you have any thoughts on a solution?
ITV COULD be ·fined after broadcasting a mathematics challenge on late"night television which some of the country's best brains are unable to solve.
The puzzle was broadcast on the Make Your Play programme which starts at midnight and is aimed at poor sleepers and those who have been drinking.
The on-screen question headed "Add the pence" listed: two pounds, 25p, £1.47, 16p and fifty pence and offered a prize of £30,000.
Three-and-a-half hours after the programme started, the host announced the answer was 506 and that no one had won, but did not explain the solution which an ITV source said was standard practice since "it would ruin the game for some people".
But mathematics professors, the high IQ. organisation Mensa and the lateral thinking pioneer Edward de Bono all failed to come up with a solution.
Only the cryptanalysts of Bletchley Park, who helped end the Second World War by breaking Nazi ciphers, were able to suggest an answer. But ITV said the code breakers were wrong and the solution was not that complicated.
Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, Marcus du Sautoy, showed the puzzle to other lecturers.
He said: "No one can fmd a good reason for the answer being 506. That's not to say that we haven't missed some clever perspective but there was a growing sense among those I talked to that this could be a scam.
"Anyone adding up the pence in the obvious way gets to 438. So there is a missing 68 pence." -
The regulator Ofcom said it was investigating 20 complaints against the show.
So..... members, do you have any thoughts on a solution?