"What's the Answer?" A 7-Year-Old Daughter's Math Problem That Stumped an Oxford University Math Professor

Photo by Twitter

[Asia Economy Reporter Hana Na] A mathematics professor at Oxford University was at a loss, saying, "I don't know how to answer" regarding his 7-year-old daughter's math homework.

The protagonist of this story is Professor Kit Yates, a mathematics professor who earned his PhD in mathematics from Oxford University and served as the director of the Mathematical Biology Institute at the University of Bath, and the author of The Power of Thinking with Mathematics.

On the 24th (Korean time), Professor Yates posted on Twitter, "Please help with the homework my daughter received on Monday," along with a math problem. The problem he posted involved a semicircle diagram and asked whether the statement "There are two right angles here" was true or false.

Professor Yates said, "This is no joke. I don't know what answer to give my daughter," adding, "As far as I know, this is the first time my daughter has been asked about angles."

Netizens who saw the tweet gave various answers. Some answered "false," but most answered "true." Their logic was that the radius of the circle and the tangent meet perpendicularly, so there are indeed two right angles.

However, explaining this process to a 7-year-old daughter would require mentioning concepts like differentiation. For this reason, netizens criticized, saying, "Who gives this kind of homework to a 7-year-old?"

But the correct answer to this problem was "false." The intention was to show that there are no right angles through the curve of the circle.

Yates said, "Next week, I will ask second-year university math students how they think about this."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.