## Very interesting…..

I may have been a bit premature in declaring Judy the winner, but the
decision stands(if only to demonstrate the correct usage of irony). Except now she’s now been awarded second prize, but don’t worry, all the prizes are the same anyway . Who’d have thought that my little mini contest would have generated such a mathesophical discussion (or should that be philomatical? I always get those two mixed up) but then it’s as it should be as Pythagoras was a philosopher as well as a mathematician.

"Ironic you say?" Yes, ironic I say. I made up this little contest to show my gratitude and to reward one of you for voting for me. The irony is that the person who won the prize was the one person among you who definitely did not vote for me! Judy, you see, was nominated in the same category (mind you she may have voted for me, I voted for her).

And that brings us to the results:

1st Prize goes to Kila for her well thought out corollary.

2nd Prize goes to Judy for being the closest first.

3rd Prize goes to Melissa for single-handedly raising my comment count.

Honourable mention goes to Colette for being such an enigma.

And here is the explanation…There were two quotes from the Wizard of Oz, the first from the Lion and the second from the Scarecrow both from when they were given their prizes by the Wizard. On the surface, it looked like a simple quote from the movie illustrating that as a result of being awarded a prize saying I’m brainy, I actually got smarter. And that would have done if no-one actually got the real answer.

However, Kila uncovered the deeper meaning. In a perfect demonstration of just how ridiculous that concept is, she pointed out that the quote from the Scarecrow was wrong. The wording was correct, but what he said was completely wrong (which, incidentally Jenn, is why it wasn’t said by Pythagoras, you may want to hold off on lowering your goals for a bit).

To explain I’ll have to get a bit technical. In it simplest form, Pythagoras’ theorem is $a^2 + b^2 = c^2\,$ and is solved by $\sqrt{a^2 + b^2} = c. \,$

In English that’s "The square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides."

Compare that to the Scarecrow quote which is "The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining
side
."

Given that we are talking about a hypotenuse, by definition we are only talking about right angled triangles, and not all isosceles triangles are right angled, in fact only those with one 90 and two 45 deg angles are. Plus, he not only mangled the theorem, it’s just plain wrong, as we need the length squared, and not the square root of the length.

Anyone still awake?  Good, then have a look at this…

### 23 Responses

1. Excellent really, because we were wanting to watch a movie tonight, and we hadn’t seen that. My husband particularly liked it, I thought he was going to wet his pants laughing. He always has been a bit of a potty mouth.

2. I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about with all that math nonsense and it looks like I missed a fucking post earlier. Well FUCK! I’m glad you redeemed yourself with that fucking video. I laughed my fucking ass off. But I still have a fucking headache from trying to read fucking math before having my fucking coffee. Thank you for the fuckfest anyway. Wait, that didn’t fucking sound right.
Are you going to get naughty searches from all this “fucking”?

3. At first, I was disappointed to have missed the contest. However, after reading the contest post, I would have not come with a brillant answer like Kila. I do rather like the contest and your explanation. Congratulations to you, Kila, Judy, and, Melissa.

I not sure if you are just being modest or not. But, you do seem rather clever, Willowtree.

4. Well fuck you too!

5. On the first part of your post, “la la la, white noise, white noise”

On the last little tidbit, daggum it Willowtree, you are NEVER going to be able to remove word verification >:(!

6. Ow. My head hurts. But I must say WT gives GREAT prizes

7. I think Jenni has said it very “eloquently’ hehe

8. WT are you trying to tell us readers we are fucked or that everyone is just screwed in general?

9. Not a video to watch when two six year old boys are present!

10. awwww. a chicken with a major lisp.

11. by the time I checked out your contest last night it was won hands down. So I didn’t either enter.
But I think I scared beau.

12. that should read “I didn’t even enter.” or better yet “I didn’t bother to enter.”

The thing about word verification is it doesn’t catch words that randomly slip out of my head.

13. Congratulations to all the winners!

I loved the picture of Belle on the wood!

I’m happy to hear that Buddy’s alright!

14. fuuuuch! I didn’t get a thing of that!!

15. Whatever is in the box isn’t showing up on this computer. I’m at work right now. Will have to come back here once I get home.

Thank you, thank you for allowing me to be the winner! Wow. I’m honored. Too bad I don’t have a speech prepared.

To win first place from the brainiest blogger in the blogosphere ought to count towards something in my darn Written Communications class! I should give you my instructor’s email.

I hope the prize involves a plane ticket! Though, it would be hard to decide which child to send you first 😉 They would make good lumberjacks and zookeepers.

16. P.S. I like your new logo, LOL.

17. What? Huh? What’s the longest side of a triangle called? That’s not the hypotenuse? Where am I?

18. huh

*zzzzzzzz*

wohh huh?

ohh yeah I did math last year not doing it this year WT… sorry i tend to nodd off when it’s zzzzzzz

learning related to math…

zzzzz

snort

what did i miss?

19. My favorite ‘f’ quote is:
“Where did all these fucking Indians come from?”
—Custer
I don’t do math.

20. and I do specifically recal asking for a contest I could like ya know actually win????

21. Jenni – Thanks, that should improve my search ranking.

MJD – If I wasn’t so modest, I’d tell you that I have an IQ that’s approaching genius.

Nikki – Thank you.

Kila – It’s probably just as well you couldn’t get the clip to play while you’re at work.

Robin – White noise……

Beccy – Yeah, that’s kinda what I figured too.

Pamela – Beau is not happy with you.

Melissa – No, the hypotenuse only refers to right triangles.

Wolfie – I’m working on it.

22. I had to come back to tell you, Cory loved that clip.

23. Enigma?……Is that an Aussie rock band or something???