The Corner

Kerry’s Math Moment

Remember the fuss over Dan Quayle not being able to spell “potato”? Well,

apparently John Kerry doesn’t know that 125 plus 90 is greater than 180

An interesting feature of this story is that when readers first alerted me

to the WFTV web page it’s on, the report left the reader with the first

student’s answer of 30-60-90. That of course was incorrect, though WFTV

obviously didn’t know it. They must have got some somplaint e-mails and

changed the page accordingly.

[Correct answer: The angles of a 3-4-5 triangle — that is, one whose sides

measure 3, 4, and 5 units long — are pi/2, arctan(4/3), and arctan(3/4).]

John Derbyshire — Mr. Derbyshire is a former contributing editor of National Review.
Exit mobile version