312=36, 412=47, 512=58. Then what is 612=?
A simple yet not-so-simple math puzzle has been spreading across social media. Among math enthusiasts, the conversation has gone beyond merely finding the correct answer, sparking online debates over the right method to solve it.
According to the British daily Daily Mail on Sunday, hundreds of people have debated how to arrive at the correct answer to this simple math puzzle, which leans more toward arithmetic than advanced mathematics.
The Daily Mail reported that the puzzle, which gained traction on X, is a brain teaser that, at first glance, appears to be a standard equation but does not follow traditional mathematical formulas.
Since applying conventional mathematical rules makes finding the answer difficult, people who encountered the puzzle on SNS have been proposing their methods to arrive at the correct solution.
The most popular answer is 69, with hundreds of users submitting the same response.
The Daily Mail explained how people reached this answer. First, the initial digit becomes the tens place. The unit digit is derived by adding all three digits of the number. For example, in 312, the first digit, 3, becomes the tens digit, and 3+1+2 equals 6, which becomes the unit digit—combining 3 and 6 results in 36.
Following the same logic, for 612, the first digit 6 becomes 60, and 6+1+2 equals 9, resulting in 69.
Other interpretations exist. One method adds the first two digits, 6 and 1, to make 7, which becomes the tens place, and the last digit,2, becomes the unit place, resulting in 72. Another user boldly added all three digits to get 9 as the answer.
In early March, another variation of the puzzle surfaced on social media.
The question reads, “If 11+12=32, 12+13=52, 13+14=72, then what is the answer to 15+16?”
Since then, people who saw this equation on SNS have tried to think creatively to find a solution.
It is not a simple matter of addition.
The most convincing approach to the solution is to first perform the addition and then reverse the result’s digits.
So, instead of 15+16 equaling 31, you reverse it to get 13.
