The smarter you are, the harder this is
 

It is said that the smarter a person is, the more difficulty they have in solving this puzzle. I don't know how much truth there is in that, but it took me about 30 minutes. Dr. Richard Duke at the University of Michigan, who uses this puzzle as a demonstration in his gaming/simulation courses, took more than a year to figure it out initially. Some people solve it in mere seconds.

The page has all the information you need to solve the puzzle. Don't spoil the answer for everybody else if you figure it out. Have fun!

Okay...so that took about 5 minutes for me to figure out...hmmm...

OK, I must be an imbecile worthy of sterilizing (I told ya'll I had minor neurological damage!). I figured it out on the 3rd try and the first one didn't count cuz I just automatically put down the botanically correct number without looking at anything else.

Damn, I must be brilliant...I can't seem to figure it out. This is annoying, but addictive. I'm not sure whether to thank you or not.... Every time I think I've figured it out and I get the number right, it ends up that the way I got the number right was wrong....


;)


Sidhe

21 minutes

my cat got it right the first time (he likes to play with the keyboard while I type). Lady Sid's post made me realize that my earlier answer might have been dumb luck, and sure enough, it was. I guess there's hope for me after all. As to my cat, he's just a dumb animal, what else can Isay?

Took me about eight tries. And I ain't dumb.

Looks like an interesting test of left/right brain capability, coordination, and balance.

About 2 seconds. Most of it spent hunting for the numbers on the keyboard.

When I first was introduced to this puzzle (in 1977, I believe) it took me about 15 minutes.

Well I cant figure it out

Third try.:)

I seem to have a mental block with anything to do with numbers.....I suck

The :blunt: interferes with logical reasoning.

i beg to differ

arrrrrghhhhhh


-sm

god that just about caused me to pop a blood vessel, 15 minutes and 3 pieces of paper covered in models. THe problem is you need to really step back and just mull on the name for a minute.

Coders etc I think have the most hell with this.

That sucked, guess I'm not bright, got on the second try, about 10 seconds worth of work, and it wasn't even fun, and it sucked.

Why do I keep clicking on crap like this?

I still don't have it.

All that I can say is that the number of petals is (as far as I've seen) always even.

grrrrrraaaaaaarrrrrrggghhhhhh


-sm

it has taken me 20 min so far, but I stopped playing because of Internet costs. Best guess, It would take me about 1-2 years because, well, my IQ is 136 ( how is it that a circumstance like this makes you feel ashamed of how smart are you:mad: )

ok, let me say that i don't believe the "smarter" you are the longer it takes, because the people i see finishing quickly (although i may disagree with them at times) are definitely not ranking low on the intellectual scale. for all of you that in the past have thought i was the world's biggest dumbass - point proven.

i've been going for 45 minutes and i am so f'ing pissed right now. i have never felt more stupid in my entire life. would someone please take pity on me and email me big picture that i am obviously missing.

i don't know what to say. i don't believe it, i'm at a loss. oh well.

I don't really think that smarter people take more time to solve it... I think that a person who is more open-minded, creative, and/or not technically-minded will probably solve the puzzle faster. Once I figured out the answer, I realized that the programmer inside of me had been working against me... I was looking at it all wrong.

If somebody tells you, it may end up making you feel even worse. It's very simple, it's just not immediately obvious to some people, depending on how your mind works.

This still pisses me off...I punched in 2 and clicked, then figured it out......I'm probably the dumbest of the regulars here, and it wasn't fun, wasn't stimulating, the smarter you are crap is crap, and I came back to this thread...that's what really bunches my undies.

I don't think so...not by a long shot.

Dude, if you think I'm dumb, just come out and say it. I can't any more of these veiled insults. Sniff.

Ow, my feelings.

If anyone really wants he answer I'll PM it to them; I do have to agree, it's nothing to do with how smart you are, just your abiliaty to think laterally - something which in itself is a sign of intelligence and creativity. As I said before, being a coder or any job where similar types of thinkig are needed is a massive disadvantage.

If you can't solve it, do this.
Stand back, repeat the name out loud to yourself a few times, click roll, get the answer and think for a few minutes... Think about the name.

HP, as dumb as you are, you are by no means the dumbest person on The Cellar. :)

Just shut up before you know who starts a vote for the dumbest thread.:rolleyes:

Finally got it, one day later.

What's really bad is that that was the first solution that came to mind, however I took the language of the question too literally. After dismissing my original hypothesis, I went scatter brained and attacked the problem, looking for all sorts of things. I noticed one attribute that kept popping up, but I didn't stop to think out the logical ramifications of that until I left the problem and came back to it.

I'm just glad that "rose" isn't a homonym for "rows".

Did you get it right on the third try?

It took me 22 mins.

I was trying my hardest to think like a stupid person!

wtf??? petals, roses? It's a bunch of dice!! I thought I was quite laterally minded, obviously not. And I'm not trying to sound intelligent because I can't do it - it only tests one type of intelligence anyway when in fact there are (at least) nine different types. In a Mensa IQ test which measures spatial, linguistic and mathematical intelligence I scored 155 - chances are my zone of proximal development concerning other types of intelligence is frustratingly large.

It's nothing to do with stupid or not, it's just about your ability to think outside the box.

You can actually sove this two ways, you could sove it by simply building a large enough table of data and working it out by analysing that, or you could simply re-read the name a few times.

jag can you pm me the answer it's driving me mad

Don't do it!! It's so much more fun watching people go buggy.

*whimper*

I dooonn't get it!!!!!

And I can't spend more than a few minutes at a time on it.


Life is hell, I tell you. Helll!

*sigh*

:p

Took me three tries, and I guessed the basic idea immediately, just messed up a detail. Guess I must be stupid, as I know I'm close-minded, technically minded, and uncreative.

(seriously, of course someone who wasted a year on the puzzle would claim the smarter you are the harder the puzzle is. Sheesh)

Oh riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Thanks.

My initial reaction went something like this:

f**^*(*£$ "**@>~? @?£¬***@@ ~~##"!!!

For those still struggling, I recommend you never find out the solution. It will make you feel incredibly stupid and demoralised. I'm going to re-take that Mensa test.

Catwoman slumps off, thoroughly embarrassed

Why does no one listen to me? Hello? Is anybody there? It's cold are there are wolves chasing me.

You'd know ;)

Easy, a snap! This is the stupid way I approach all math. Visually. Generally it doesnt work, so this is refreshing.

Took me about 10 minutes, and maybe 20 tries. I guessed right, purely by chance, several times, but hadn't figured out the pattern till I read the first post in this thread that talked about the "name." Went back and looked at it again and got it right away.

I agree, it has zero to do with intelligence, and has everything to do with how your brain is wired, and how relaxed a thinker you are.

First try, based on the name. Given the thread title, sterilize me.

(I qualify for Mensa, I have minors in computer programming and math, and I've been a coder, and yet I solved it in an eyeblink. Maybe my major being English had something to do with my being the exception to the rule.)

I did it for 5 minutes and gave up in frustration and I also qualify for Mensa.

and boy oh boy does that say it all or what.

When people want to find out how intelligent they are, listening to someone else is not an option.

I don't have more than 5 minutes of my time to devote to searching for a pattern in an inane puzzle.

ok, i got it. i had the right idea yesterday, there was just one variable i was missing that was screwing me up about every 3rd time. i'm usually really good at brainteasers, but this one had me for awhile. i'm a dumbass now i guess.

I'm with Radar on this one. The puzzle is an amusement, a distraction. Purely for entertainment. I happened to have a few more minutes of time available to play around with it, and I got it. I'm sure Radar would get it too, given enough time.

No good can come from the puzzle, other than novelty value. Why waste time on it if you don't have enough time?

I got it in about 30 seconds but my 'brilliant' husband never did figure it out. I guess it's true...the smarter you are, the harder it is.:rolleyes:

So are any of you Mensa "qualifiers" actually members of Mensa? (I ask because I went to a meeting with a friend once & I could imagine any less interesting way to pass my time, and I was just wondering if maybe it was that one chapter.)

The outcome of one single puzzle doesn't say anything about your intelligence, but the study of different kinds of puzzles may help one to think creatively or to understand one's approaches to life.

In this case, there's is an interesting lesson involved for about half the people. If you don't get it after one minute, I think you may get frustrated and try harder. This "try harder" does not cut it for this problem, because it forces you to consider the problem along the same paths you have always used, just working harder. Then you get really frustrated because the problem just doesn't solve that way!

At that point, the solvers know, the right way to handle it is to relax and think differently.

I could not have solved this problem prior to 1992. In 1992 I finished working 2 years of Unix telephone tech support. This time turned me into a problem-solver. Primarily it turned me into a LISTENER. You have to PAY ATTENTION to the person describing the problem, because that is usually where you get the most clues.

Anyone who hasn't gotten the puzzle yet, it doesn't really speak to your intelligence. Go back to it, I swear this is useful. Imagine that the question in the puzzle is being asked of you by a four-year-old child. If you still don't get it, LOOK AWAY from the puzzle. Stop, and imagine a four-year-old looking at the puzzle and asking you the question. Why would a four-year-old ask that question? Picture the kid asking you the question. Is it a boy or a girl? Why would they ask that question? Imagine what the question would mean if you were four and didn't know that the dots represented numbers.

The people who got it right away are missing out because they don't get the free lesson.

/end professor mode

only if you are attracted to intelligent women.

No. I was invited to join once, and I went to a meeting with a friend and it was truly boring as hell. It was a bunch of nerdy guys sitting around trying to compare IQ's and who couldn't seem to act like normal people. They wanted to impress each other by flexing thier intellectual muscles.

I never got to meet the hot Mensa women that were in Playboy, but my guess is no matter how hot they were, I wouldn't like them if they couldn't get over themselves.

My problem is that I was looking at the puzzle as some sort of math and/or numerical patterns problem... I was trying to detect patterns, watching to see if the order of the dice had any relevance... basically looking at it all wrong. When my pattern-searching yielded little, I threw out all of my data and looked at it again, and got it almost instantly.

It's just perspective.

They probably were able to think for themselves too.

The woman who is acting as the coaster is a member of Mensa.

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