Peanuts by Charles Schulz for September 12, 2019

I’ve tried to work this several ways, and the math doesn’t seem to add up at all. I’m with Peppermint Pattie on this one!

If you don’t know the answer, Peppermint Patty, just tell Franklin so.

Questions like this make my brain hurt.

Boy this question brings back very bad memories! I hated these with a passion!

Please hang up and dial again.

The man is 38 years old, the daughter is 5.5 years old and the son is 8.5 years old.

It is now 4AM, way too early to even think about solving this.

That, young Peppermint Patty, is the right answer. My brain cell (I only have the one), has been borrowed by the cat.

He’s 26, his daughter is 4 and a half, and his son is 7 and a half. Six times his daughter’s age is 27, which is how old he’d be in a year. In fourteen years he’d be 40, which would be equal the combined ages of his children, assuming that it’s the ages of his children fourteen years from now (18.5 and 21.5).

Compare and contrast yesterday’s For Better Or For Worse!

Father is 41, daughter is 7, and son is 10

Spiritruth less than a minute agoHere is my work:

Son=daughter+3

Father+1=6*D

F+10=s+10+10+d+14. (How old each person will be in 10 years)

F=s+d+24

F=d+3+d+24

F=2*d+27

2*d+27=6*d-1

2d+28=6d

D+14=3D

D=7

S=10

F=41

I did not expect to have my brain taxed this much while reading the comics.

Yeah, I’m with Patty on this one, too.

I should’ve put what patty said on a math question I couldn’t answer.

Franklin, do you realise you’ve broken the comments section today?! :D

I was going to do the math but then thought…I’ll bet someone already has and I can just look their answer.

I was right!

I hated those kind of questions, too. Math problems were bad enough, but turning them into riddles on top of it showed a sadistic streak on the part of the person writing the questions.

who cares? it is a “man”…no one you know….

I just woke up a few minutes, can you ask the question again when I’ve become more alert?

for goodness’ sake, just say “how old are you little girl?”

But at what time will the trains meet??

The Man is currently 41 years old. Daughter is 7, Son is 10. (7 + 3)in one year man is 42 which is 6 * 7.in ten years man is 51 which is 17 + 20 + 14. (the children aged 10 years as well remember).

“There are 4 lights!”

The man is: Old enough to have the wisdom to get a vasectomy :)

It was later reused for “There’s No Time For Love, Charlie Brown” with Linus and Lucy instead of Franklin and Peppermint Patty.

The man is 41 years old! The son is ten and the daughter is seven. Also, Sparky pulled a lot of strings to get Franklin into the Peanuts universe and since then, he has gone down in history as literally the only black dude in the Peanuts universe.

The man’s age right now is 23!

Good answer, Patty!

I love problems like this, but I can’t solve them. I wish I had your skill.

I went to law school at 60 after an engineering career. There are few things as entertaining as watching a bunch of twenty-something year old law students trying to do eighth grade math.

a quote from a famous TV game show comes to mind “good answer”

Peppermint Patty was played by Lily Tomlin! There is a clue to that in Lily Tomlin’s character ‘Ernestine the Telephone Operator’!

I hate New Math.

Why are they doing algebra in 2nd grade? I didn’t take algebra until 9th grade in junior high school, and I took it a year early.

I was told that there be no maths on GoComics.

Is there free body happy

Q. What is the man’s present age?

A. Wallpaper.

Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.

I’m with Peppermint Patty. And this seems like an algebra question rather than a grade school question.

I found waldo!!!!

I knew when I saw that there were 110 comments here, that they would be divided between those who don’t love math and those who, like me, had to try to solve this problem (and I did solve it correctly). Glad to see that Schulz used a real, solvable problem, instead of making up random numbers for the sake of a punch line!

Hilarious! Who wants to figure out the result! Not me.

Not that hard. I could give this to my algebra freshmen after we’ve learned substitution, and with a little encouragement after they’re done groaning, most of them can solve it in fewer than ten steps. The unfortunate thing about problems like this one it that they are more like riddles than real life. Certain people – like myself – thrived on convoluted puzzles, but most students will get annoyed and come out of the experience hating math for its “pointlessness.” When I give word problems, I do my best to find actual situations in which the algebra would make the calculation much easier. We explore the efficacy of using different methods, including the classic guess-and check, and when available I give the historical context of how and why any given algorithm was first developed.

They expect grade-school kids to solve a problem requiring Algebra? I wasn’t taught Algebra til 9th grade!