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Christmas Math Meme Nightmare The answer IS 15! Here’s why: Before we proceed, you need to be aware (or reminded) of some things your teachers taught you in school, long before you even got to college. [Many of us remember these things from elementary school, so somewhere Mrs Read (who taught my 4th grade class at Monteith Elementary School in Waterford MI back in 1964,) is now turning over in her grave, shocked that I, probably her least favorite student ever, am now explaining this stuff to people in 2016. Mrs. Read was not my favorite teacher and my memories of her are not particularly pleasant, but even she didn’t deserve this humiliation.] (Most people can probably skip down to the PEMDAS paragraph at this point, but I include these fundamentals just to be sure everyone understands.) First, you should know, or remember those boring “properties” you had to learn (before you were allowed to forget them) about arithmetical operations. (Operations are things like +. -, x, and ÷.) There are several, but for our purposes here we really only need to recall the Distributive Power of Multiplication Over Addition. (It “distributes” across the elements on one side of an equation.) According to the Distributive Power of Multiplication, 5 x a, or 5a, can be expressed alternatively as a series of additions with the series including as many elements as the number of the multiplier. (In this case, “5”.) So, 5a can be rewritten: a + a + a + a + a. That being the case, the reverse is also true. For example, a + a + a, is thus equivalent to 3a. My Facebook pal Jeffrey Erikson will no doubt recall our joint efforts to remain ignorant, by our discovery of the answer keys we assumed the textbook authors were naïve to include in our 4th grade math books, and which we made the efforts to de-code so we could thus cheat on our homework assignments. Little did we know (I think Mrs. Read knew all along) that by our noble efforts to remain uneducated we were lead into a trap that ultimately taught us something even though we valiantly attempted to avoid actually doing the work honestly. During the 60s, elementary textbook authors and elementary teachers were a sinister lot that victimized myself and millions of other unsuspecting in ways like this. Today, millions of people my age remain victims, cursed with knowledge and understanding of elementary math in spite of our youthful efforts to remain steadfast in our devotion to ignorance. The second thing we need to be aware of is that in performing equations, we do NOT prioritize a left to right series of steps over PEMDAS (More on that in a moment) or the equal sign. Whatever we do to increase or decrease value on one side of the equal sign must be done on the other side too. Our objective is not like reading a sentence. Our objective is in PRESERVING the integrity (truth, or in some rare circumstances untruth in the case of equations using the “not equal” sign “≠”) of the equal sign, while narrowing down the options and thus defining what the numeric value of variables (snowflakes, candycanes, or goblets, or as those old math books use, x, y, and z,) MUST BE! It would also help to keep in mind that in addition to the snowflakes, candycanes, and goblets, there is another variable in this problem. Namely, the “?” which is the ultimate goal among the variables we hope to define. But in order to solve for “?”, we must first solve for all of the other variables. Finally, PEMDAS PEMDAS is the acronym for the correct order of operations in solving mathematical equations. It stands for Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction. It is by evolved convention in the world of mathematicians that this agreed upon and time-tested order works best to serve as a uniformly agreed upon sequence of operations to avoid confusion in the world of mathematics and mathematicians. If we want to communicate our mathematics in writing, then like language, we must follow universally accepted systems. (Similar to rules of grammar and punctuation in language.) We follow the steps in order thus: P#1: We do whatever is included within PARENTHESES first. (In the case of parentheses within parentheses we do the innermost ones first. But our problem above will not require us to do that. And since there are no parentheses in our equations above, we skip over that to the next operation which is, E#2: We solve, combine, or otherwise eliminate or define the value of EXPONENTS. Like Parentheses, it would be possible to assume some exponents in any equation. Provided we don’t alter any known values or create further confusions, or if we are not concerned with their actual value we may be able to simply subtract them from both sides of the equal sign if the quantities removed both represent the same value on both sides. but we have no need to do either of those things in any of our equations here since no exponents are used in any of them. So we next consider, M#3: We do all MULTIPLICATION(s) on both sides of the equal sign, and ONLY between the quantities that befall both immediate sides of any multiplication signs. We probably don’t have to worry about this until the last equation because the prior ones only contain additions. Thus it would only come into play if one had to do an in-depth explanatory display of the fundamental Property of Multiplication that I mentioned earlier. Once again Mrs. Read, wherever you are, I am so, so, very sorry. I want you to know it pains me to be the student of yours who is explaining all this to the world. I know I am the least worthy of your students, because all of them were far more intelligent than me, and I pray that somewhere, if any of them survived the Disco era’s mass destruction of all things intelligent, that they are also sharing this knowledge with the world. As an accomplished fool, I’m just not worthy to be the one sharing this info. D#4: We do all DIVISION(s) on both sides of the equal sign, and only between the quantities that befall both immediate sides of any division signs. Like Multiplication, we can skip this step for the same reasons. A#5: We do all ADDITIONS(s) on both sides of the equal sign and only between the quantities that befall both immediate sides of any addition signs. For our purposes, this step will yield our final answer, so although we needn’t go on to it, I’ll end this discussion of PEMDAS with: S#6: We do all SUBTRACTION(s). So now we're ready to start solving. We can use the Distributive Property on the first equation to rewrite it. Snowflake + Snowflake + Snowflake = 30 Is rewritten 3snowflake = 30. Now, we can identify the value of snowflake by isolating it alone on one side of the equal sign, by dividing both sides of the equal sign by a common factor of 3, and we get: 3snowflake/3 = 30/3 And after performing those operations we have identified a single snowflake: Snowflake = 10. Okay, so now we move on to the next equation, and to reduce the confusion we eliminate known quantities to isolate and identify the unknown variables. To do it we can simply subtract the value of a snowflake, 10, from both sides. 10 + candycane + candycane = 20, becomes 10 – 10 + candycane + candycane = 20 – 10. And the result is: candycane + candycane = 10. Next using the Distributive Property of Multiplication again we get: 2candycane = 10 Then: 2candycane/2 = 10/2 And now that a single candycane is isolated on one side of the equal sign we find: Candycane = 5. On to the third equation: Candycane + doublewineglass + doublewineglass = 9, or: 5 + doublewineglass + doublewineglass = 9 To clean it up we eliminate the known elements and re-write it: 5 - 5 + doublewineglass + doublewineglass = 9 – 5, or: Doublewineglass + doublewineglass = 4. There are several ways to go around this but at this point, do you really need me too? I didn’t think so. Doublewineglass = 2 And if a DOUBLEwineglass = 2, it’s a pretty safe bet that the universe hasn’t changed, and we may safely assume that a SINGLEwineglass will equal 1. Or I suppose we can follow all those Hollywood Celebrities out of the known universe on Trump’s inauguration day, to Canada or some other unknown universe. (Maybe Hollywood is already a different universe? That might explain a lot,,, I just hope that doesn’t mean all those loonies are gonna come to OUR universe!) Nah, I think I wanna stay in the reality and stick with: Singlewineglass = 1. FINALLY THE LAST EQUATION!! And this is where it is critical that we follow PEMDAS! We start with: Candycane + singlewineglass x snowflake = ? Or: 5 + 1 x 10 = ? Following PEMDAS, we skip over Parentheses and Exponents because they don’t appear in the equation as we have it, and we perform all the MULTIPLICATION(s) to get: 5 + 10 = ? Okay, now that we’ve performed all the Multiplications, we can skip any Divisions because they aren’t in our equation, and move on to perform all the Additions and we get: 15 = ? Viola!! We have solved for “?”!! We know this because we have a single quantity on one side of the equal sign and the lone variable on the other! The answer is 15!! I’ve looked this final answer/equation over quite extensively now, and I can’t find a single subtraction sign anywhere in what remains, so I think it’s safe to skip over the final PEMDAS step and just not bother doing any Subtractions. But hey, it’s a free country so if you want to perform some subtractions, be my guest. May be a while before you find any in the last equation though. I’m leaving soon but you can send me a postcard when you find some. And I have to remember that I’m living in reality, so maybe some of those Hollywood celebrities have a different viewpoint. U better ask them now cos I think they’re all packed and ready to go, and u don’t want to miss them. Hurry. I’m not gonna wait, so again, send me a postcard after you ask them. GBU all, Gavin 
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The pic was supposed to be very near the top. Don't know why it didn't appear where I originally planned for it to be. GBU all, Gavin
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Damn, I took away all the wine in the five glasses and don't care what the answer is, now lets add more wine to be taken away please. 
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Sorry, I don't do math, I'm retired. LOL. Happy New Year, Gavin. May God bless you with health, happiness, and prosperity in 2017. Be a prism, spreading God's light and love, not a mirror reflecting the world's hatred.
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