Big Nate by Lincoln Peirce for March 15, 2020

typical asinine math story problem

“Todd and Mandy are dorky names”, said the kid who once called Chad “Todd”.

Probably Nate’s best math work.

Mandy will arrive first by 1 hour and 8.4 minutes.

In U.S. land surveying under the Public Land Survey System (PLSS), a section is an area nominally one square mile (2.6 square kilometers), containing 640 acres (260 hectares), with 36 sections making up one survey township on a rectangular grid.i.e. over 200 years of infrastructure built on dividing the country up into one mile by one mile grid.

I find this kinda similar to Calvin’s work in Calvin and Hobbes.

Where t=time in hours, wouldn’t it be 80t=1825 for Mandy, and 55t=1192 for Todd. So, Mandy’s time = 1825/80 = 22.8125 hours. Todd’s time = 1192/55 = 21.67272 hours for Todd. Todd will arrive first, by 1.139 hours. That’s about one hour, eight minutes, thirty seconds sooner. (.139*60) These problems always assume simultaneous departure, instant acceleration, and constant rate of speed, which is not possible in practice, so Nate’s right about that “stopping at a convenience store” bit.

Having taken the train from Chicago to LA (Which goes through St Louis), I can tell you that it in no way travels at 80 mph and St Louis to LA is more like 60 hours. (But the food on board is very good) And if Todd isn’t going to stop for gas he better be wearing some diapers. ;o

Todd gets there first. However, having been on the road for 21 hours and 40 minutes, he parks his car on the busy street by the cafe where they were to meet, gets out, and gets run over by the bus he didn’t see because he was so exhausted.

While Todd’s trip is faster by 1:08:23, we don’t know who arrived first, because nothing is said about when each of them started traveling.

Sometimes I would answer something like, “I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out when one of them gets there.” Not quite what the teacher was looking for.

Does it really matter who gets there first? As long as they both arrive safely, why quibble about “first” anything. Life too short to be preoccupied with the minutiae of it all.

Without worrying about traffic. Mandy will take about 23 hours and Todd will take about 21 hours. Just using simple math dividing distance by speed.

Woah, the panels are all different colors, is that new?

https://www.gocomics.com/bignate/1997/01/05

At least Nate understands Common Core.

Word problems are not meant to be overanalyzed.

Raise your hand if you read every word (mine is not up):

The directions were: “Show your work,” NOT explain your thinking.

The first bit is obsolete because the problem already told the speed (yeah I know r/wooosh but constructive criticism amirite?)

Hey it’s my birthday to anyone that cares… i’m turning 14.

It says constant, not average driving speed. That’s got to be impossible/illegal.

Moral: Never overcomplicate the question.

Louis will get there first because while he is travelling 69% as fast as Mandy, he only has 65% as much distance to cover as Mandy does.

Showed his work, all right……as (un)crowned King Of All Snow-jobs"……….ALL HAIL!!

Give him an A for creativity

LOL, I love seeing these types of comics

That’s kind of offensive to people who are named Todd or Mandy.

baldi

Nate gets an A+ if I was in charge

im sensitive to names

we need to give him a round of applause

I can’t tell if he’s avoiding the question because of his laziness or stupidity because of the last panel

1,825 / 80 = 22.811,192 / 55 = 21.67Todd gets there first by 1.14 hours

We will never truly know, because we don’t know exactly when they’re traveling.

Todd will reach St. Louis first.

There was a Calvin and Hobbes strip that was a lot like this.