Taken from today's Evening Standard

jimbo

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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?:)
 

rolfw

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Yes, it is 506, I had the other 68 pence in my pocket. :-lmao
 

jimbo

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rolfw said:
Yes, it is 506, I had the other 68 pence in my pocket. :-lmao
I wouldn't say that was exactly lateral thinking.:eek:
 

Salty25

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Course it's a bloody scam, if OFCOM don't deem it as such we'll know once and for all that this country has gone to the dogs.
 

PaulR

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Only zero-IQs would ever think that could ever win one of these quizzes.

Then again nobody every got poor by overestimating the intelligence of the general viewing public.
 

wod

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probably being abit thick but how do they get 506 as the answer would be 438 if you add up two pounds, 25p, £1.47, 16p and fifty pence

its all an effing con
 

Analoguesat

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It says add up the numbers NOT add up the pennies! so you can add in another 12 for starters (1+4+7) plus 7 (1+6) plus 7 (2+5) plus any other covoluted way to add in extra numbers - I can add in 47 and 1 no problem - whic adds up to 74 but you see the principle :D
 

harrowwoman

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I wonder if the 'two pounds' at the beginning (instead of £2) would have anything to do with it? Just a thought......laterally speaking that is.
 
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