Challenge yourself with a handwritten math equation that has been causing a massive debate on social media! It comes with a simple question right at the top: “Can You Solve This?” It looks exactly like a problem you would have easily solved in grade school, but it is tricking a surprising number of people today.
The image asks you to solve: 4 + 1 × 0 + 5.
What makes this puzzle so tricky is our natural instinct to read and calculate straight from left to right. If you do that, you might add 4 and 1 to get 5, then multiply by 0 to get 0, and add the final 5 to end up with a completely incorrect 5! That × 0 in the middle of the problem is a classic trap.
To get the right answer, you have to remember the golden rule of math: the order of operations. This rule states that multiplication and division must always be completed before addition and subtraction.
So, your very first step is to tackle the multiplication section. 1 × 0 simply gives you 0.
When you drop that zero back into the problem, the equation becomes incredibly easy: 4 + 0 + 5.
Now you can just add the numbers together from left to right. 4 plus 0 is still 4, and adding the final 5 brings you directly to your solution.
Answer: 9.
