Critical thinking: a newspaper article reports the results of an election between 2 candidates. the article says that smith received 60% of the voted and that murphy received 1/3 of the votes. a reader writes in to complain that the article cannot be accurate. what reason might the reader have to say to this?

The reason why the article cannot be accurate is because there's only 2 candidates, that is, the 100% of all votes must be the sum of both candidate's both, and if we sum, we find that the percentages given don't represent the total 100%:

As you can see, the sum of both ratios don't result in 1, which means 100%. If we divide we have:

According to the article, both candidates only represent 93%, which is wrong, because they must represent 100%, because there's no other candidate.

i think it's eleven too, don't woosh me here, but according to the "experts" it's 2.

the proof starts from the peano postulates, which define the natural

numbers n. n is the smallest set satisfying these postulates:

  p1.   1 is in n.

  p2.   if x is in n, then its "successor" x' is in n.

  p3.   there is no x such that x' = 1.

  p4.   if x isn't 1, then there is a y in n such that y' = x.

  p5.   if s is a subset of n, 1 is in s, and the implication

      (x in s => x' in s) holds, then s = n.

then you have to define addition recursively:

  def: let a and b be in n. if b = 1, then define a + b = a'

      (using p1 and p2). if b isn't 1, then let c' = b, with c in n

      (using p4), and define a + b = (a + c)'.

then you have to define 2:

  def:   2 = 1'

2 is in n by p1, p2, and the definition of 2.

theorem:   1 + 1 = 2

proof: use the first part of the definition of + with a = b = 1.

      then 1 + 1 = 1' = 2   q.e.d.

note: there is an alternate formulation of the peano postulates which

replaces 1 with 0 in p1, p3, p4, and p5. then you have to change the

definition of addition to this:

  def: let a and b be in n. if b = 0, then define a + b = a.

      if b isn't 0, then let c' = b, with c in n, and define

      a + b = (a + c)'.

you also have to define 1 = 0', and 2 = 1'. then the proof of the

theorem above is a little different:

proof: use the second part of the definition of + first:

      1 + 1 = (1 + 0)'

      now use the first part of the definition of + on the sum in

      parentheses:   1 + 1 = (1)' = 1' = 2   q.e.d.