Working out the next number in this maths sequence might just make you tear your hair out.
Keeping our minds healthy is just as important as exercising the rest of our bodies. One of the best ways to make sure your brain gets a good workout is to challenge yourself to a range of tricky brain teasers that force you to think differently. And while it might be some people's least favourite subject, a great source of these puzzles is maths.
So if you're looking for a challenge today, why not give this puzzle a go? It should be "simple" to solve, but it turns out "many people" fail to answer it correctly.
Can you work out this puzzle? (quiz_riddles/Twitter)The puzzle was posted on X (formerly Twitter) by the @quiz_riddles account, who wrote alongside it: "Many people will get this wrong. What is the answer?"
The words were accompanied by a picture of the puzzle, which listed three seemingly easy addition sums, and a fourth one which had not been solved. However, if you look closely at the image above, you'll notice that the sums don't quite give you the answers you'd expect.
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Alongside 1 + 4 = 5, the puzzle claims that 2 + 5 = 12 and that 3 + 6 = 21. Finally, the puzzle asks you to work out what 8 + 11 should be. Now, we all know that in reality 8 + 11 is 19, but that's not the correct answer for this confusing brain teaser.
Do you know what the solution should be? If you're still trying to work it out, don't scroll any further - as we're about to give you the correct answer!
Answer
8 + 11 = 96.
There are two ways to work this puzzle out. In the first solution, every sum after the first one is correct when you add the previous answer to it. So we know that 1 + 4 = 5, and in order to make 2 + 5 = 12, we must add the 5 from the previous answer. Likewise, 3 + 6 = 21 is correct if the full sum is 3 + 6 + 12.
This does mean you have to do some extra working out between the sums, as you need to work out the values of 4 + 7, 5 + 8, 6 + 9, and 7 + 10 before you get to 8 + 11. But if you do it correctly, the full sum should be 8 + 11 + 77, which is 96.
A quicker way of solving the puzzle is to do what I did and think outside the box. I noticed that while 2 + 5 doesn't equal 12, 2 x 6 does. The same is true for all the sums, including 1 + 4. If you flip the plus to a multiply and add one to the second number, every sum is correct. And 8 x 12 also gives you 96.
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