Friday Funny: The Four 4’s

If you enjoyed last weeks mathematical challenge, Friday Funny: 6 The Hard Way, this challenge steps it up a level. This challenge from the internet adds a ten minute time limit to see how far you can get while under pressure.

I take no responsibility for mental breakdowns caused by trying to solve this challenge.

This puzzle is called “The Four 4’s” and involves you creating mathematical equations that will make four 4’s equal to all the whole numbers starting from zero.

Below is the chart for zero to ten, but you can keep going as far as you can for ten minutes. Getting to 20 is achievable.

Here are the rules:

• Use any mathematical symbol, as long as they don’t include a number.
• There probably will be more than one solution for each equation.
• Start at 0 and work your way up. You must go in order.
• You have 10 minutes to complete as many as you can, aim for at least 20.

Respond in the comments how you went, but don’t give away any answers.

Hint: Watch for patterns as they will help you quickly solutions for groups of equations.

Enjoy

David

PS: I will post the source links later as they include solutions.

This article was originally posted on http://www.winthropdc.com/blog.