Simple Arithmetic for Dummies

speedometer and odometer

Every once in a while we hear a howl of glee from the research tank, where all our staffers are diligently poring over millions of internet posts in search of abject stupidity to ridicule. That usually means that one of the interns has stumbled over a blog post that will just about write itself... which is what happened for today's post. While updating an older post and verifying the source content's location, he found that it had been replaced... by content that just might have been even stupider. Without further ado, we give you Athena Hessong and her eHow post "How to Calculate Distance Traveled from MPH" (now at ItStillRuns.com).

A college history grad who often fumbles when faced with STEM topics, Hessong grabbed this topic because it seemed pretty easy. After all, to find distance from velocity (which is pretty much the question), all one need do is solve the equation velocity = distance/time for distance, resulting in distance = velocity * time. That's what Athena said here, sort of:

"Using the rate of miles divided by the hours for the speed, you need only the time you traveled to calculate your distance..."

...which we thought a rather innumerate way to state the relationship, but we're pretty picky. Whatever the case, let's see how Hessong's post played out... Note the speed in miles per hour (MPH)... ...record the time elapsed. Convert the time traveled to hours by dividing the number of minutes by 60. For instance, if you traveled for 5 minutes that equals 5/60 = 0.83 hours. Multiply the number of hours by the speed in miles per hour to find the distance traveled. For example, if you traveled 0.83 hours at a speed of 30 MPH, your distance would be 30 x 0.83 = 2.5 miles.

We have no real problems with 1 and 2, though her wording is clumsy (thanks to DMS's requirement for "action verbs"). It's Hessong's example calculations in 3 and 4 that had our staffer howling with laughter:

• 5 / 60 is 0.083, not 0.83
• 30 * 0.83 is 24.9, not 2.5

So the wondrous website eHow.com published this dreck back in 2010 (or before), and it still stands. Small wonder we call it the mother lode of misinformation; and with stupidity like two math errors in two sentences, it's no wonder Hessong is our Dumbass of the Day for the fifth time.

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MM - ARITHMETIC