The age of the captain is a mathematical word problem which cannot be answered even though there seems to be plenty of information supplied. It was given for the first time by Gustave Flaubert in a letter to his sister Caroline in 1841:[1][2]

More recently, a simpler version has been used to study how students react to word problems:

A captain owns 26 sheep and 10 goats. How old is the captain?[4]

Many children in elementary school, from different parts of the world, attempt to "solve" this nonsensical problem by giving the answer 36, obtained by adding the numbers 26 and 10.[4][5] It has been suggested that this indicates schooling and education fail to instill critical thinking in children, and do not teach them that a question may be unsolvable.[4][5] However, others have countered that in education students are taught that all questions have a solution and that giving any answer is better than leaving it blank, hence the attempt to "solve" it.[4][5]

References

  1. 1 2 Flaubert, Gustave; Lettre à Caroline, 16 mai 1841 Archived 2016-03-24 at the Wayback Machine, Correspondance, première série (1830–1850), G. Charpentier et Cie, Éditeurs, Paris, 1887
  2. 1 2 Flaubert, Gustave (1926–1954). Oeuvres complètes de Gustave Flaubert : correspondance (in French). Vol. 1. Paris. p. 140.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. "Mathematical Quotations – F". Math.furman.edu. Archived from the original on 2018-10-07. Retrieved 2018-05-24.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Verschaffel, L.; Greer, B.; de Corte, E. (2000). "Making Sense of Word Problems". Educational Studies in Mathematics. 42 (2): 211–213. doi:10.1023/A:1004190927303. JSTOR 3483286. S2CID 116924004.
  5. 1 2 3 Molina, Natalia; Strohmaier, Anselm; Reiss, Kristina (November 10, 2018). ""I added the numbers, it's math!" How sense-making in "age of the captain" problems differs between a mathematics classroom and a language classroom". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)


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