This Seemingly Simple Math Problem Keeps Stumping People on TikTok

Philip Ellis

April 23, 2020 4:05 PM

With people facing increasing levels of boredom in quarantine, more and more challenges are going viral, from Tom Holland's handstand challenge on Twitter and Instagram, which gained momentum and difficulty when athletes Lolo Jones and Simone Biles got involved, to the TikTok clock , a grueling test of core strength, control and coordination created by Brazilian gymnast Arthur Mariano.

This Math Challenge Keeps Stumping TikTok Users

But it looks like boredom has reached critical levels, because now, TikTok users are doing math.

An addition problem which seems easy enough at first glance is being widely shared, as people's mental arithmetic skills keep getting tripped up by the same part of it. All you have to do is add up the following numbers. Try it for yourself:

1,000

What answer did you get?

If you came up with 5,000 then congratulations: you're not alone. But you're also not correct. The actual right answer is 4,100.

See, it's remarkably straightforward to add up the first bunch of numbers in your head. 1,000 plus 40 is 1,040, plus 1,000 is 2,040, plus 30 is 3,070, plus 1,000 is 3,070, plus 20 is 3,090, plus 1,000 is 4,090. But it's at this penultimate sum that things get tricky. Most people, when adding 10 to that figure, come up with 5,000. But that's your brain skipping ahead (and overlooking a zero). The correct sum is actually, of course, 4,100.

If you got the answer wrong, don't feel too bad. So did these TikTokkers.

Philip Ellis