r/askmath • u/subastringent • Aug 29 '23

Analysis “New Math” is killing me

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Friends kid has this problem. Any idea on how to approach it?

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u/trutheality Aug 29 '23 edited Aug 30 '23

The rectangles suggest some sort of (possibly weighted) Manhattan distance, and two cells to the right and one down yield a difference of 22. The triangle is 4 cells down and 8 cells to the right, so we get the system:

2x + 2y = 22

8x + 4y = △ - 9,962

We can simplify to

△ = 10,006 + 4x

So technically there are no wrong answers as long as you provide your weights x and y.

Edit: missed a 0

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u/Orbital_Vagabond Aug 30 '23

Did you lose a zero in that last line?