Futility Closet

Sum Caws

Posted in Language, Science & Math by Greg Ross on September 1st, 2009

The Russian for crow (a bird) in the genitive case plural is sorok. The same word also means forty. Hence, the ambiguous construction ‘100 crows + 100 crows = 200 crows’ can also mean ‘140 + 140 = 280.’

– V.M. Bradis, Lapses in Mathematical Reasoning, 1938