Feeling a bit bored this morning I thought I would tease chatGPT with a simple maths puzzle from this weeks Grange Academy newsletter. Below I reproduce the prompt (aka the puzzle) and chatGPT's response.
The response is long winded, it fails to realise that the data given about the protagonists ages is irrelevant to the question at hand. Also we have the bizarre third bullet in the problem breakdown: "We need to find grandpa's age when he was born (i.e., grandpa's age now)". Also in stage 3: "Grandpa’s age when he was born was 0, since he is currently 64 years old.", a conclusion that does not follow from the premise (premise: "he is currently 64 years old", conclusion: "his age when born was 0")Prompt:
Grandpa, dad and son all have ages which are powers of 2, and sum to 100.
How old was grandpa when he was born?
Response
Let's break down the problem:
Grandpa, dad, and son have ages that are powers of 2.
Their ages add up to 100.
We need to find grandpa's age when he was born (i.e., grandpa's age now).
Powers of 2
The powers of 2 are:
1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc.
Step 1: Set up the equation
Let the ages of grandpa, dad, and son be powers of 2, say:
Grandpa's age = ( 2^x )
Dad's age = ( 2^y )
Son's age = ( 2^z )
We know that their ages sum to 100:
[
2^x + 2^y + 2^z = 100
]
Son's age = ( 2^z )
Step 2: Try possible combinations
We need to check combinations of powers of 2 that add up to 100.
Try ( 64 + 32 + 4 = 100 )
This works, so:
Grandpa's age = 64
Dad's age = 32
Son's age = 4
Step 3: Grandpa's age when he was born
Grandpa’s age when he was born was 0, since he is currently 64 years old.
Conclusion:
Grandpa was 0 years old when he was born.
