I was recently stunned by a recent internet headline which stated "Buckle up, this viral cow maths puzzle has truly fried everyone’s brains." I knew this was likely just click bait, but I checked it out in case there was a good lesson. Here is the link to the "viral" problem: https://thetab.com/uk/2024/02/20/buckle-up-this-viral-cow-maths-puzzle-has-truly-fried-everyones-brains-353769.
If you don't want to go to the site it stated "I bought a cow for $800; I sold it for $1000; I bought it again for $1000; I sold it again for $1300. How much did I earn?"
As you probably did in your head, I summed: -800+1000-1100+1300=400. The range of answers included $100 - $1500.
Sometimes such problems have a trick, but I thought this was a straight-forward problem. I believe the only reason this may have been somewhat viral, is that there are too many people who are very uncomfortable with math. My opinion is that this problem on the internet got popular only because many people are uncomfortable performing some basic calculations. Math is important because people need to have confidence in performing calculations to evaluate everyday situations.
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