The basis for one of those supremely irritating thought puzzles, stated thusly:
Using only one straight mark (line segment), transform the following false expression into a true expression:
|0|0|0 = 950
A few words of caution:
- Adding a slash mark through the equals sign, so as to form a 'not equals' sign, is not the solution.
- I didn't invent this. I don't even like this. I simply helped solve it for someone else, and found that its solution was not readily accessible on the web. The solution was also, surprisingly, not available here on E2. I decided to remedy the situation.
- The person who told me the solution is a noder on here, and I'd like to credit him/her for showing me the answer. Only I forget who it was. Something about a munchkin, maybe?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. This isn't angsty teen poetry. Sorry.
- On a 'Stupid Logic Problem' scale of one to ten, one being 'He stood on a block of ice, and when the ice melted, he was hanged', and ten being 'The penguin reached for the soap', this puzzle comes in at about an 8.
- The solution will likely irritate you, as it does me. Don't say I didn't warn you.
So, give it some thought. If you need to know the answer, go find the node with a node_id = 471426 -- it will give a great big spoiler-like hint. You probably shouldn't link to it below, in case some nutcase here wants to try to figure it out on their own. Of course, the odds of there being a nutcase like that here on E2...