Maths challenge

Thu Jul 13, 2006 2:59 pm

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTI
FIC STUDY COMBINED WITH
THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS...

How many times does the letter 'F' appear in the above statement?

See if you get it right the first time

Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:38 pm

6

Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:45 pm

3 doh

Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:57 pm

3? I don't get it. Am I wrong?

Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:58 pm

OF course you are wrong.

Thu Jul 13, 2006 4:04 pm

Generally speaking people don't process the f in 'of'. Apparently if you get it the first time then it kmakes you a genius. Needless to say I had to have it pointed out to me

Thu Jul 13, 2006 5:10 pm

I got it right but I have to confess, I knew of the 'trick'. I miscounted the first time I tried this puzzle long ago. This time I went over the sentence 3 times very carefully to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Thu Jul 13, 2006 5:15 pm

So was I right or did I miss one? You know I am a genius but I really dont like to brag LOL.

Nuck

Thu Jul 13, 2006 7:02 pm

6 after i looked through it carefully twice

Thu Jul 13, 2006 7:11 pm

Got 6 the second time around. The third OF got me.

Thu Jul 13, 2006 8:32 pm

That blows my mind... I don't know how I could have stared at it for that long and not seen that.

Fri Jul 14, 2006 2:15 am

4

Fri Jul 14, 2006 3:20 am

Originally posted by LeVar Burton
That blows my mind... I don't know how I could have stared at it for that long and not seen that.

Yeah I know. When they told me it was 6 I started looking for like clever 'f' patterns in the text. It's sneaky.

Fri Jul 14, 2006 7:56 am

Damn... I found 372 instances of the letter "f" in that phrase. I should probably call a doctor.

(Actually, found all of them in the first run, but like PA I've seen this before and was aware of the "trick")

Fri Jul 14, 2006 10:33 am

Yep found 6 the first time but I also knew about this.

Reminds me of ones that say something like -

JACK AND JILL
WENT TO THE
THE COUNTY FAIR