3 ms·

My favorite is this one: A bear falls into a well. The depth of the well is 19.617 meters, and it takes the bear 2.0000 second to reach the bottom of the w

My favorite is this one: A bear falls into a well. The depth of the well is 19.617 meters, and it takes the bear 2.0000 second to reach the bottom of the well. What is the color of the bear? https://qr.ae/pKqzpC https://qr.ae/pKqzpC

philwelch 3y ago
I like the work he put into the answer but he totally flubs it at the end. Black bears are actually dark brown and brown bears are also brown, so there’s no need to try and guess a specific bear species; the bear is necessarily brown.
- CRConrad 3y ago
  Except polar bears are actually black, AIUI. On their skin, underneath the fur. Or if you go by the fur, they're (off-)white.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    Except the guy already ruled out polar bears based on latitude.
ziptron 3y ago
Maybe I am bad at promoting, but I could not get ChatGPT3.5 anywhere near a logical process to answer this question. https://chat.openai.com/share/67998d60-0f81-410e-ba8b-ec5a0f29ec22 https://chat.openai.com/share/67998d60-0f81-410e-ba8b-ec5a0f...
- fbn79 3y ago
  Chat GPT 3.5: https://chat.openai.com/share/9187924c-64ab-4246-a2b0-0c9cead0e811 https://chat.openai.com/share/9187924c-64ab-4246-a2b0-0c9cea... Regenerate for more languages solutions
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  I couldn't get GPT4 to answer it either, even with several variations on the prompt. It gets too fixated on the "bear" part, so it just assumes that the answer is "white", because that's a "common trick question". I find it interesting that it disregards the rest of the question, and just picks "the most common answer to a trick question involving the color of a bear"!
lifthrasiir 3y ago
I don't really like that because it's obviously a troll question. Its wording and a large number of significant digits clearly demands the acceleration of gravity to be reverse-engineered, so it can't be a real question even by a chance. One thing to consider if it's indeed real: how much water is in that well?
- Ekaros 3y ago
  What is definition of bottom of the well? The water level or the possible bottom when pumped empty or dry?
- hinkley 3y ago
  One variant of this question was designed to test the theory that students try to fit the inputs to an answer regardless of whether the answer has anything to do with the question. People see this as some sort of failing of students but I think it says more about the teachers. You’ve overtrained students on problems that mean nothing to them, then you throw another nothing problem at them that’s simply three times as much nothing as the usual level of irrelevance. Randall Monroe said it best: we should be teaching high school students how to split the bill for a birthday dinner. That’s more complicated math than most 20 year olds can correctly manage. It’s also what they’re going to do with math about 75% of the time.
- throwaway167 3y ago
  > how much water is in that well? Given the viscosity of air vs. water, one might assume there's no water in the well. Also, given some surface area of a bear, and air pressure from a cushion of air formed under the falling bear, the fall speed does seem a little high, at least for a calculation with that number of decimal places, but perhaps the well was located in the crust of the earth where gravity's a tad higher. Living bears are also buoyant, and will be slowed down considerably on meeting the water, so the bear is unlikely to have reached the bottom of a water-filled well for a long period, if at all. To answer OP, I'd say the bear is brown, because of the mud from the base of the (somewhat empty) well. However to an outside observer, given the lack of light in the well the shade of brown might not be discernable. A human in the well with the bear will see the colour of the bear as a low relative concern compared to A) being in a well and B) being in a well with a bear.

philwelch 3y ago

I like the work he put into the answer but he totally flubs it at the end. Black bears are actually dark brown and brown bears are also brown, so there’s no need to try and guess a specific bear species; the bear is necessarily brown.

CRConrad 3y ago
Except polar bears are actually black, AIUI. On their skin, underneath the fur. Or if you go by the fur, they're (off-)white.
- philwelch 3y ago
  Except the guy already ruled out polar bears based on latitude.

ziptron 3y ago

Maybe I am bad at promoting, but I could not get ChatGPT3.5 anywhere near a logical process to answer this question. https://chat.openai.com/share/67998d60-0f81-410e-ba8b-ec5a0f29ec22 https://chat.openai.com/share/67998d60-0f81-410e-ba8b-ec5a0f...

fbn79 3y ago
Chat GPT 3.5: https://chat.openai.com/share/9187924c-64ab-4246-a2b0-0c9cead0e811 https://chat.openai.com/share/9187924c-64ab-4246-a2b0-0c9cea... Regenerate for more languages solutions
jiggawatts 3y ago
I couldn't get GPT4 to answer it either, even with several variations on the prompt. It gets too fixated on the "bear" part, so it just assumes that the answer is "white", because that's a "common trick question". I find it interesting that it disregards the rest of the question, and just picks "the most common answer to a trick question involving the color of a bear"!

lifthrasiir 3y ago

I don't really like that because it's obviously a troll question. Its wording and a large number of significant digits clearly demands the acceleration of gravity to be reverse-engineered, so it can't be a real question even by a chance. One thing to consider if it's indeed real: how much water is in that well?

Ekaros 3y ago
What is definition of bottom of the well? The water level or the possible bottom when pumped empty or dry?
hinkley 3y ago
One variant of this question was designed to test the theory that students try to fit the inputs to an answer regardless of whether the answer has anything to do with the question. People see this as some sort of failing of students but I think it says more about the teachers. You’ve overtrained students on problems that mean nothing to them, then you throw another nothing problem at them that’s simply three times as much nothing as the usual level of irrelevance. Randall Monroe said it best: we should be teaching high school students how to split the bill for a birthday dinner. That’s more complicated math than most 20 year olds can correctly manage. It’s also what they’re going to do with math about 75% of the time.
throwaway167 3y ago
> how much water is in that well? Given the viscosity of air vs. water, one might assume there's no water in the well. Also, given some surface area of a bear, and air pressure from a cushion of air formed under the falling bear, the fall speed does seem a little high, at least for a calculation with that number of decimal places, but perhaps the well was located in the crust of the earth where gravity's a tad higher. Living bears are also buoyant, and will be slowed down considerably on meeting the water, so the bear is unlikely to have reached the bottom of a water-filled well for a long period, if at all. To answer OP, I'd say the bear is brown, because of the mud from the base of the (somewhat empty) well. However to an outside observer, given the lack of light in the well the shade of brown might not be discernable. A human in the well with the bear will see the colour of the bear as a low relative concern compared to A) being in a well and B) being in a well with a bear.