The Problem 51% Of People Can't Solve

How does your brain work? These simple puzzles will reveal a lot!

Huge thanks to Leidy Klotz (and his co-authors of the paper) for helping out with this episode.

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Written by: Mitchell Moffit
Edited by: Luka Šarlija

Sources:

[AsapSCIENCE]

Loving all the discussion on this! Indeed, the size of my figurine may have confounded the first experiment (in the original design, their 'person' was much smaller, but this is the LEGO I had to work with at home and it hadn't occurred to me). I'm also finding it fascinating how big a role language/word use in the puzzles has impacted people differently, with words like "switching" having a different connotation to some people - I hadn't totally thought of that before! Regardless, hope you can appreciate the idea (and the research paper if you have a chance to look at it, in the description notes). It changed my perspective on decision making a lot, and hopefully it will have an impact on some of you as well :)

[amberc]

For the symmetrical ones I was thinking you had to move some squares around, I didn’t even think to add or subtract them

[Lolmonster]

You said “by switching any of the squares” and I thought you meant switching them around and changing position. Not adding or subtracting

[LordMajicus]

The problem with your Lego figure example is that your physical minifig would not fit in the place you have him standing if you remove a block.

[Leo_Fender]

Yeah there’s a problem with that Lego predicament: the left guy, when stood underneath “the roof, ” is too tall to remove the one red piece. Therefore, it does not work in this example given one could visually see it would crush the Lego guy

[LupinoArts]

“Perfection is Achieved Not When There Is Nothing More to Add, But When There Is Nothing Left to Take Away” Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

[ultravidz]

Answers are obvious if “switching” includes removing. Sounded like we can only move them around

[CaoNiMaBi]

These questions are honestly just badly worded or have very specific and pedantic solutions.
The lego brick seemed to be perfectly stable without any change
SWITCHING (squares) is a vague term
It may cost money to remove things from the golf course and dispose of the item
etc.

[Jawz]

I thought we couldn’t add or remove things in each problem; I was just trying to rearrange everything

[MrDDiRusso]

When looking at the golf course, my first question was, "What's wrong with it the way it is?"

[spockw.]

I didn't think of subtractive solutions simply because of how badly the riddles were worded lol.

[DigitalMetal]

00:50
"by switching any of the squares"
I didn't I could add or subtract. The way you asked it made it sound like I could only move existing squares.

01:13
"make this mini golf course better"
What does that even mean? Is better easier or more challenging?

01:23
"In the Lego example, people are most likely to add a block"
The way the question was phrased I assumed the structure was already built and was were trying to reinforce what was there, not tear off the roof and rebuild it.

If you want better answers you need to be more clear with your questions.

[electricerger]

For engineering, I can say that while we like removing elements, the issue usually becomes with backwards compatibility. Especially when people depend on something being a certain way (just try to drop the roof 1 foot on a building).

[BobzBlue]

Your solution makes the lego person unable to be under the roof.

[Простойрусскийпатриот]

I’m a beginner coder, and getting used to deleting some code in order to rewriting or optimizing it is one of the most essential things you need to learn out there. The less code u write to solve a problem the better coder you are. One line solution is more appreciated then a ton of text. And yes, I broke my hand petting myself on the back for solving this puzzle with substraction, lol

[trapezoid]

Yeah this is just like one of those dumb riddle videos where the solution is something you didn't know was allowed.

[somerandomweeb]

Math teacher: Jason, Why did you leave the whole test blank?
Jason: you see I was thinking about adding extra text but I changed my mind and decided that a subtractive solution would be better

[SassInYourClass]

0:51 When you said "switching", I interpreted that as "moving". I was explicitly under the impression that I couldn't add or take away green squares. That made the the others impossible as the number of green squares in each were not a multiple of four. Clear directions are important for puzzles.

[gregorycarnielutube]

On the lego problem specifically, the little figure doesn’t fit in your solution.
So if following the instructions of ‘change the structure so you can add a block and the roof wouldn’t collapse on top of this figure’ you’d have to add blocks instead.

[kfetter]

I got stuck on the squares puzzle cuz you said "switch" squares, so i thought i had to swap them around, not add or subtract.... and quickly realised 3 of them were impossible lol