Paradox

A Maths Starter of The Day

1. Two of the statements in this box are wrong.

2. There are 604800 seconds in a week.

3. The sum of the first 10 square numbers is 385.

4. A square is also a rectangle.

5. Multiplying a value by a whole number makes it bigger.

6. The numbers from 1 to 20 add up to 210.

 

 

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"A paradox is an apparently true statement or group of statements that leads to a contradiction or a situation which defies intuition."

Wikipedia,
Wednesday, April 25, 2007

 

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Thursday, May 24, 2007

 

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Answer

Mathematically speaking the only incorrect statement is number 5. Multiplying by a negative whole number makes a positive value smaller.
But if there's only one statement wrong then statement 1 must be wrong too; but then two statements are wrong so statement 1 is correct.
Let's solve this paradox by agreeing that statement 1 is wrong because it refers to a box rather than a rectangle. What do you think?