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Broken Calculator (Posted on 2005-01-20) Difficulty: 3 of 5
You have a calculator whose multiplication button is broken. The only operations that work are addition (x+y), subtraction (x-y), and reciprocation (1/x).

Can you use this calculator to multiply two numbers?

See The Solution Submitted by David Shin    
Rating: 3.6250 (8 votes)

Comments: ( Back to comment list | You must be logged in to post comments.)
Division | Comment 11 of 14 |

I don't think division is operable.  David said the only operations that work are addition, subtraction and reciprocation.

If division worked, we could easily do:

((1/x)/y)-1 = (1/(xy))-1 = xy

That's a little too easy and trivial, so that's why I don't think division is usable.

Edited on January 21, 2005, 1:20 pm
  Posted by nikki on 2005-01-21 12:37:59

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