People have been left baffled and divided after a father shared his 7-year-old daughter’s geometry homework on the internet.
Dr Kit Yates is a maths lecturer and the co-director of the University of Bath’s Centre for Mathematical Biology who was confused by his young daughter’s homework.
The homework consists of a purple shape and the text that reads: “True or false? This shape has two right-angles. Explain your answer.”
Taking to Twitter in an attempt to find the right answer to the question, the father wrote: “This was my daughter’s (7) maths homework on Monday. Can someone help me out with the answer?”
“I’m not being facetious here. I’m genuinely not sure what I should advise her the correct answer should be,” he added.
After the photo of the homework went viral, people were quick to admit that the question was rather challenging for young students.
While some pointed out that the angles don’t appear to be right angles due to the curved line forming them, others suggested the correct answer is yes because the “tangent to the curve at the corner is vertical.”
“I’m going for yes, on the basis that in as much as a single angle exists for a curved line it should be 90 degrees at those two points. (ie there’s no other single value that makes sense),” someone wrote.
“Tangent to curve at the corner is vertical, so 2 right angles, no?” another one said.
Eventually, however, someone shared the screenshot of the completed worksheet that claimed the right answer was in fact ‘False’.
“False. Children could show this by using the corner of a page to show there aren’t any right angles,” the answer on the completed worksheet read.
Following the social media uproar, Dr Yates spoke out to The Mirror and told the publication he would be presenting this same question to his university students because both answers can be strongly defended due to the nature of the homework.
“It’s actually a really deep and thought-provoking question which could be used later on in school to spark conversations about infinity, tangents, calculus and many more interesting mathematical concepts, but it might not be best for seven-year-olds being homeschooled by their parents!” he said.
“I’m going to set it as a riddle for my second year University Maths students next week to see what they come up with.”
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Replaced!