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Comment by rubberbandage | Hacker News Reader

I honestly cannot grasp how this could be a “predictor” of religious belief. Being confused by confusingly-crafted math-ish questions does not mean the rest of the world is perceived as a mystery too, and therefore religion is the answer to everything. I believe there is no god, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why the answer to the first question is “5¢” — could someone help me understand?

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> I believe there is no god, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why the answer to the first question is “5¢” — could someone help me understand?

Question: "A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? ____cents"

Let b be the cost of the ball in cents. Then b + 100 is the cost of the bat in cents.

  b + (b + 100) = 110
  2b + 100 = 110
  2b = 10
  b = 5

QED.

The ball can't be 10 cents, because 10 cent ball + 1.10 dollar bat = 1.20, and it'd exceed the total.

Since the difference is 1 dollar, we can do ball + ball + 1 dollar = 1.10, then we can see that 2(ball) = 10 cents, so 10/2 = 5 cents for the ball.

I think the questions gage whether or not the person's beliefs/thoughts/rightness come intuitively and they decide to settle, or they keep searching.

This question seems like it came straight out of the book, Thinking, Fast and Slow.

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