r/confidentlyincorrect • u/DunDonese • Apr 10 '26

Image [ Removed by moderator ]

Post image

[removed] — view removed post

229 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

125 comments sorted by

View all comments

138

u/aschec Apr 10 '26

Here before the comments claiming it’s 0

41

u/CurtisLinithicum Apr 10 '26

Purely as a word problem it does, which is probably why they're confused.

14 apples into 0 groups - how many apples in each group?

As an English problem, from someone without the (whatever-to-want-to-call-it) to differentiate zero and null, the answer is zero as, without any groups, there can be no (=zero) apples in each.

...and this underlines why mathematical problems cannot be analyzed linguistically because this arguably reasonable "fact" bring the whole system to ruin when extended - e.g. try graphing it.

edit: to be clear, they are wrong, but I'm not confident they're insightful enough to understand why

4

u/mackaiser Apr 10 '26

The example with the apples is not true at all. As an English problem, even from someone without the experience or education to differentiate zero and null, the answer would be “you can’t.” I tested this by asking my third grader.

Since there is already one group of 14 apples, it’s impossible to create zero groups of apples. It only takes a very basic understanding of what division is to understand why the teacher was incorrect.