I’d like to ask the good people of this community that, if you do know the solution or figure it out, that you not share the answer here. Feel free to announce your success, but there’s something to be said for discovering the answer completely unaided, even if it takes years.
It’s embarrassingly obvious once you see it though.
Yeah it takes a different type of self confidence to think someone else can consider “adding two numbers” as their master piece puzzle lol.
I think I’ve been addled by years of seeing versions of “99% of MIT students get this WRONG! can you do better?” proceeded by
2 + 8 ÷ 4 = ?. I didn’t comment but there was some time where I thought I had it and completely missed that the 7 contradicts the pattern, even though it’s specifically called out. I’m glad someone did comment so someone else could correct them, otherwise I would have left the puzzle behind never knowing I had gotten it wrong.