FoxTrot by Bill Amend for April 19, 2009

  1. Missing large
    dumbadum  over 15 years ago

    Excellent!

     •  Reply
  2. Missing large
    cmknoer77  over 15 years ago

    bleeep i was going for first post with the answer…bill is getting lazy some of the letters he didn’t use have non-numeric answers

     •  Reply
  3. Missing large
    ZetaZeta  over 15 years ago

    Too bad you didn’t need to use the Integral.

     •  Reply
  4. Missing large
    welcor2  over 15 years ago

    Bill’s not getting lazy - they all resolve to numbers. There’s a difference between the minus (see H) and the division (see L) operators.

     •  Reply
  5. Shrek front
    attyush  over 15 years ago

    7-11-23-15-20-13-23-11-17-15-9-26

    13-20-10-10-17-11-6-13-2-10

     •  Reply
  6. Missing large
    pgn674  over 15 years ago

    As I was doing these, I wondered if Bill writes SAT’s? They all have some elegance to them, making them easy to do in your head quickly if you recognize what he was getting at for each one. The trigonometric and calculus ones got me, though, just because I haven’t done that in a while.

     •  Reply
  7. L 3c5049e7d7854deea64b751c9bde1c06
    ScatteringBliss  over 15 years ago

    What a little turd!

     •  Reply
  8. Zippy56995996595959995956959599956956599569511111122222333333
    Hugh B. Hayve  over 15 years ago

    Wow, I’m amazed I can still do most of these in my head! (except for the trig, which I need a calculator for)

     •  Reply
  9. Missing large
    Wes_Bowie  over 15 years ago

    The integral is 3x^3:

    3(2^3) - 3(0^3) = 24

     •  Reply
  10. Album cover
    kfaatz925  over 15 years ago

    Wow… my brain’s not in gear today… that was fun, though!

     •  Reply
  11. L
    mjensen9999  over 15 years ago

    19-13-16-11-16-11

     •  Reply
  12. G
    mrgromit  over 15 years ago

    I bet Bill gave millions of people a kick as this has been the first chance to do silly math like this in…ages!

     •  Reply
  13. Simpsonized me close up
    mrprongs  over 15 years ago

    The fun part is you don’t need to solve them all. Once you get the first few letters, it’s obviously Paige Fox. Which is pretty much what it’d be about given the two characters featured.

     •  Reply
  14. Missing large
    Native_Monado  over 15 years ago

    She sure is, Jason… She sure is…

     •  Reply
  15. Missing large
    Ceroill2  over 15 years ago

    FUN? GAHHH! I’m with Paige on this one!

     •  Reply
  16. Img 0027
    jackofstories  over 15 years ago

    Thank you, fearciuil for letting me not do math on a Sunday. (not do grammar either)

     •  Reply
  17. Missing large
    tobybartels  over 15 years ago

    Terrible! The Spanish version wasn’t translated: http://www.gocomics.com/espanol/foxtrotespanol/2009/04/19/

    The Spanish translation of Fox Trot is often not as good as some others (especially Calvin and Hobbes, which seems to be quite good), but this time they didn’t even try!

    (I gave it a shot, but my translation is probably not too hot either. But at least I have one!)

     •  Reply
  18. Missing large
    budgiekid90  over 15 years ago

    The mathematical expressions next to the letters all evaluate to some number between 1 and 26. Those give the corresponding letters for the numbers on top. With those correspondences, the numbers spell out “Paige Fox is Bad at Math.”

     •  Reply
  19. Hyperbole
    Fantastica  over 15 years ago

    Awesome. ^_^

     •  Reply
  20. Icon
    Virtualjump  over 15 years ago

    I solved C and Q, only to realize that they are not in the sentence. D’oh!

     •  Reply
  21. Missing large
    PlainBill  over 15 years ago

    From ‘The Notebooks of Lazarus Long’ by Robert A Heinlein

    “Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable sub-human who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.”

     •  Reply
  22. Missing large
    VikingsDieHard  over 15 years ago

    It’s best to not overthink it, and just use good standard ACT/SAT Math test methodology. Buzz through and do the ones you can easily do in your head. Also do those that still use basic Algegbra, but might require just a little, quick pencil work, and you will then find you are done. Any that might be a bit more challenging, for some, like C, K, Q, & U, turn out not to be needed, at all. My Trig is rusty, but turns out it dosen’t matter. An early clue is that there are 26 clues, but only 14 unique #s.

     •  Reply
  23. Miserichord5small
    Miserichord  over 15 years ago

    The Artemis Fowl books by Eion Colfer use a substitution code of symbols for writing in “Elvish”. The “rosetta stone” for the code is given in the first book.

    My great nephew at 7 could manage the books, but begged my help with the coded messages. I explained how the code worked, and helped him work out the key.

    We started decoding the messages, and he was astonished that, after ten or so messages, I started sight reading the code without using the key.

    I supposed years of working in machine code trains the brain in pattern recognition.

     •  Reply
  24. Durak ukraine
    Durak Premium Member over 15 years ago

    My son likes to play around with codes. There is this code which is supposed to be an alien language on the show “Futurama”. It shows up all the time. It’s a substitution code. He broke it and keeps up with the messages on the show. Sometimes the messages are the best part of the show.

     •  Reply
  25. Missing large
    kramtterrag  over 15 years ago

    8-13-6-6 11-22-10-20-17 13-23 11-4-10-23-15-22-10. 12-19-11-20-26-23 2-15-9 12-19-10 24-3-13-14! 25-10-9-21 10-20-7-15-21-11-8-6-10.

     •  Reply
  26. Missing large
    Machtyn  over 15 years ago

    [quote]Step 1: Eliminate C, K, Q & U [/quote] Oh come on people! Q is easy to do in your head if you’ve had your first or second year of high school calculus. Integration is derivation backwards. S[0..2] 9x^2 dx (9/3)x^3|0..2 3(0)^3 + 3(1)^3 + 3(2)^3 0 + 3 + 3(8) = 3*9 = 27

    K = |-26| = 26. That’s absolute value… which means whatever the number, it is always positive.

    C = sin(Pi/2) = 1 U = -3 Cos(Pi) = -3 * -1 = 3 By the end of high school pre-algebra, you should have your trig functions memorized. Truly this will save you a lot of time the rest of high school and college.

    Will you ever use this in the real world? Probably not (and I speak as a graduated CECS major working in software QA) except to solve Foxtrot comics ;) … Now, if you become an engineer of something, then you’ll use this stuff on a daily basis.

     •  Reply
  27. Missing large
    Machtyn  over 15 years ago

    oops… I made a mistake in the integral (actually two… I caught one before posting). I’ve spent too much time in the upper algebra classes :-/

    That should be 3(2^3) * 3(0^3) = 24.

    If you must know, my first mistake was multiplying the 9 by 2.

     •  Reply
  28. Missing large
    Machtyn  over 15 years ago

    3(2^3) * 3(0^3) = 24

    That mistake is because it is midnight :p

    3(2^3) - 3(0^3) = 24 - 0 = 24

     •  Reply
  29. Missing large
    drfloyd5  over 15 years ago

    Bravo. Excellent way to get your readers to flex their math muscles.

     •  Reply
  30. Missing large
    kenwhelan  over 15 years ago

    Helo Bill

    I don’t see the answer to K. I think it should be 26.

    I don’t see the answer to Z. I think it should be -14/0 or “infinity.

    Thanks for your help.

    Take care. Ken Whelan ken@kwa.net 206 351 8177

     •  Reply
  31. Nukecareer
    hcaulfield  over 15 years ago

    I don’t know if anyone pointed this out before me, but for letter L you must assume that x is not equal to zero ;D

     •  Reply
  32. Missing large
    janbruce  over 15 years ago

    What fun!

     •  Reply
  33. Escher glass ball
    fidget360  over 15 years ago

    -14/0 is not infinity. it’s an error message because you can’t divide zero. When you divide by zero the universe turns inside out and you can prove that 1=2 or that 1= (anything else you jolly well please), basically, all of mathematics breaks down. My math teacher in high school used to tell us that if you divide by zero, the math cops will come out and string you up by your toes from the flag pole and play tether-person with baseball bats.

     •  Reply
  34. Dim
    EmacsUser2  over 15 years ago

    The operators in Z are dot (meaning multiply), not minus. Hence, no division by zero.

     •  Reply
  35. Missing large
    Xerloq  over 15 years ago

    4-19-11-12-11-19-3-19 10-4-11-23-12-10-15-2 12-13-22-10-13-22-9 10-11-6-6-21-23-3-16 9-13-23-10-17-12-19-11 12-13-12-15-15-26-23 15-22-3-1-19-12-13 22-10-15-20-11-22-15 20-17-11-21-22-15-9-20 13-20-5-12-15-23-15-6 25-10-12-19-13-23-16-3 14-14-6-10-11-20-17-12 19-10-20-1-9-10-11-12 10-11-19-3-5-10-22-10 23-23-11-5-10-6-13-26 10-12-19-13-23-15-20 10-2-15-9-11-6-6-15-2 21-15-3-12-15-17-10-1 15-17-10

     •  Reply
  36. Missing large
    Machtyn  over 15 years ago

    L evaluated at 0 would result in 0/0 = 1, right? Some mathemagician named Brahmaguptra said this is 0 and that it is a fallacy to say it is equal to 1 (which results in 1=2 proofs). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_by_zero

    I suppose he should have written L = (9x+9x)/3x | for all real numbers except 0

     •  Reply
  37. Missing large
    init4thelolz  over 15 years ago

    wow. I can’t believe I can do every one in my head (except C, U, and Q)!

     •  Reply
  38. Missing large
    kramtterrag  over 15 years ago

    Xerloq said “19-3-19-10”. Did you mean to say “19-3-5-10”?

     •  Reply
  39. Missing large
    sandradurgan  over 15 years ago

    it only took like ten minutes!

     •  Reply
  40. Missing large
    sandradurgan  over 15 years ago

    26-10-6-6-21-4-11-13-19-10-9-10

     •  Reply
  41. Missing large
    semaphore  over 15 years ago

    I was getting tired of translating all the comments people were posting, so I wrote a little Javascript app to do it: http://www.amrittuladhar.com/projects/foxtrot/

    I need to get some sleep…

     •  Reply
  42. Missing large
    suzyblackthorn  over 15 years ago

    Thanks so much for this comic. It was lots of fun (although on the easy side). I could not read the rest of the comics until I finished it. MORE LIKE THIS!

     •  Reply
  43. Dim2
    farren  over 15 years ago

    Well, it was pretty easy math. Except for the trig and integration ones (C, Q, U). And even those are easy if you can remember trig and calculus. Weird thing is, I’ve been in computing for forty-five years now, and never had to use either. Not like they told me, not at all.

     •  Reply
  44. Missing large
    JFCyra  over 15 years ago

    The Code Means P-A-I-G-E-F-O-X-I-S-B-A-D-A-T-M-A-T-H

     •  Reply
  45. Missing large
    bntg  over 15 years ago

    DON’T GIVE AWAY THE ANSWER, SOME OF US ACTUALLY WANT TO FIGURE IT OUT.

     •  Reply
  46. Theskulker avatar ic07
    TheSkulker  over 15 years ago

    It’s no wonder this country is in such trouble. 23 of the 26 expressions are nothing more than simple arithmetic: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and roots! Grammar school stuff. Two are simple trig values: the trig equivalent of 1+1=2 (eighth grade skills). Only one involves beginning calculus and that one is not used but could be determined by process of elimination.

    It is very sad to witness the results of our failed of educational system here. Teachers not required to know math “teaching” math is like the blind leading the blind and is doomed to failure.

    Math is a basic life skill in today’s world. Without an educated population no country can compete and is on a path to self destruction.

     •  Reply
  47. Missing large
    FunniesFirst  over 15 years ago

    My 6th grader could (and did) solve all of these except for the trig and integration. The puzzle was fun but not all that challenging. It might look hard at first, but the problems are really quite simple. 14 x 14 x 14/14 x 14 is clearly 14 not infinfity or zero or any such nonsense.

    To Furienna: No offense, but I thought European schools were supposed to be far superior to American schools, especially in math and science education. I’ll be a bit more skeptical from now on whenever ads tout “European engineering” to entice me to buy an expensive car or gadget.

     •  Reply
  48. Missing large
    mewarmo990  over 15 years ago

    I’m surprised at how many people are having such a hard time with this… it’s all simple arithmetic, and the trig and calculus bits are the most elementary problems possible.

     •  Reply
  49. Bradley 0 trimmed
    tct  almost 15 years ago

    This may be old news but I have also written a program to decode messages.

    http://primepuzzle.com/tc/foxtrot.html

     •  Reply
  50. Missing large
    futzyone  about 13 years ago

    “Paige is bad at math”. Huh.

     •  Reply
  51. Dscn1596
    ReneeZimbodgi  almost 13 years ago

    Paige-is-bad-at-math

     •  Reply
  52. Missing large
    Zubhan  almost 13 years ago

    Paige is bad at math.

     •  Reply
  53. Stickman
    zarzar555  over 12 years ago

    Paige is bad at math is the answer, if you could not solve this, go back to school cuz im 12. Oh and i did this when i got the book, which was when the book came out Foxtrot sundaes

     •  Reply
  54. Missing large
    Mark Thames  over 11 years ago

    PAIGE FOX IS BAD AT MATH!!! YES I GOT IT!!!

     •  Reply
  55. Missing large
    Zubhan  about 11 years ago

    thats not an insult, thats a fact

     •  Reply
  56. Boonaahnaaaaah
    hazel power   over 6 years ago

    I didn’t even try because I knew someone (or many someones) would answer for me. Call me lazy, but I think that’s a waste of time.

     •  Reply
  57. Missing large
    Andy P Premium Member over 5 years ago

    Took me about 4 minutes to solve it all. And I’m not good at math.

     •  Reply
  58. Tijaro  1
    Tijaro  about 5 years ago

    whats it say?

     •  Reply
  59. Tijaro  1
    Tijaro  over 4 years ago

    the answer is Paige fox is bad at math, I worked all the math out before solving. I’m in 6th grade XD, and I solved “Q”

     •  Reply
  60. Cage
    ebrooks  over 3 years ago

    11,8,1?,17,10,2,5,19; 13,7,26,6,22,20,15,16,18?; 9,23,12,3?,25,4,18,21,14

     •  Reply
Sign in to comment

More From FoxTrot