Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for February 08, 2020

At least he knows there are 9 zeros in a billion.

Oh, NOW you tell him the answer, Susie?

A boy who loves spaceships would think that a billion miles is a reasonable answer.

Another F for Calvin.

And so Tracer Bullet solves the case, the dames are happy, money exchanged hands we can al stay tuned until the next exciting adventure of Tracer Bullet.

HaHaHa… Nice try Susie. I’m pretty sure it’s 1,000,000,000

That Tracer Bullet was a dud….

Has Tracer Bullet cracked the case? Has the Derkins dame been holding out on him? Is the whole thing a snow job by the Wormwood dame? Can we ever know?

Everyone knows you can’t solve that problem without knowing the year and model of the cars!

I was hoping “Tracer” would have actually stumbled onto the solution.

Okayy

Missed by thaat much!

NOW she tells him the answer…

I hope Tracer requested his payment before he took the case.

What a mo-ron as Reba would say.

Using the common core method, I think Calvin’s answer would be correct.

Not “the” answer,Calvin. “An” answer.

What’s REALLY scary is encountering people working in stores today that have no more of a clue as to how to do simple math problems in their head then Calvin did… if the computerized register is down, they CANNOT figure out the change from a $20 bill for a $16.50 Purchase… and YES, I have encountered these people in real life!!

I love that sudden return to reality!

But Susie just gave him the answer . . .

Dr. Evil’s childhood, the Reboot

I just worked out it would take 89.61 minutes to travel that far at the speed of light. I also looked up that that’s roughly the distance from Earth to Saturn.

Split the difference: 50,000,007.5?

Ahahahahahahhaaa! I needed this!

Did anyone else try to work it out in their head and, a couple days later when Suzy came up with the answer, had to go back to see what the word problem was? Yup, mind like steel… colander that is….

It only gets harder in college: If a transfinite quantity traveling via quantum tunneling approaches a black hole having a radius of e, how many wormholes of radius 2*pi*infinity will it traverse before reaching the train station?

Still wish Bill Watterson hadn’t left the party early.

Now WHY would Suzie ask him that? There are many more students just as close to her.

after reading all of replies to the featured comment, 14 of my brain cells fried. Thank you people.

Ok, here’s one I gave my own 4th graders in homeschool:

A motorcycle passes our house. The pitch of the motor drops 1/4 note (on the piano) as it passes. How fast was the motorcycle traveling?

Calvin is such an intelligent boy, but uses his smarts in fantasy which leaves his skills focused on issues unrelated to the task at hand. He probably could be a successful writer, but his intelligence, if corralled, could make his future unlimited.

I hope he showed his work.

“What did you get, Calvin?” You mean there was only one question on the test?

Susie, such a nice person.

Word problem, Feb 3. Jack and Joe etc.