‘What is the closest time to midnight?’: Maths question for kids causes confusion
On the face of it, it is a rather straightforward question.
But a maths question for children about time that was posted on social media has gone viral, racking up 1.4 million views after leaving people vacillating between more than one seemingly valid answer.
The problem was posted on Twitter by user @yawdmontweet from Jamaica, who said the question “hurt his head”.
The question was: “What is the closest time to midnight?”
The following options were provided as potential answers: A. 11.55am, B. 12.06am, C. 11.50am, and D. 12.03am.
Social media users appeared to have been thrown off by the question, and commented with different answers.
Many thought the answer was D. because it is only three minutes away from midnight.
But others countered that 12.03am is the closest after midnight, not to midnight, because time moves forward.
Going by that logic, the answer should be A, they said, since 11.55am is 12 hours and 5 minutes to midnight. 12.03am would be 23 hours and 57 minutes to midnight, and thus the furthest.
Many Twitter users disagreed, arguing that the question relates to proximity, not chronology.
Some respondents said the question was confusing because of how it was worded. There was no indication of “which midnight” the question was referring to.
For one person though, the answer was simple: ask artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT.
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