You’re never too old to learn something new.
People are losing their minds over how simple — yet tricky — an elementary school-level math equation posted on X (formerly Twitter) is.
Over the weekend, user @BholanathDutta shared the equation that looked relatively simple to his thousands of followers, until it wasn’t, stumping many online who immediately regretted snoozing through math class back in the day.
The math problem at hand is 9 x 9 + 9 – 9.
The social media user reminded people to apply PEMDAS — something many of us learned in 5th grade and probably forgot.
If you need a refresher, the acronym stands for (starting from left to right): Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication and Division, then Addition and Subtraction.
Most of the comments under the post guessed 81, while a few others confidently posted wild card answers like 91, 82 and 80 — proving this math formula might not have been as easy to solve as they assumed it to be.
The correct answer to the equation is, drumroll, please…
81.
@BholanathDutta technically didn’t confirm 81 to be correct, but if you follow PEMDAS, all roads lead to that number as the equation’s answer.
Who knows how many cheated since the majority wrote 81, and only a few explained how they figured out their final answer.
This X page is known for posting brain teasers and puzzles.
Another head-scratcher recently posted was “Take 16. Multiply it by half, then add 8. What do you obtain?”
This one was not as straightforward, as the answers in the thread were all over the place.
Some guessed as low as 16 and 40.
While others confidently wrote 132 and 136.
These brain stumpers are proof that back in elementary or middle school, when you were sitting bored, trying to listen to your teacher and thought to yourself, ‘When am I ever going to need to use this math?’
Well, there’s your answer.
