What is a half of a half?

My barber used to ask me this when I was 5 years old.

 

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And you still haven't figured it out?

 

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Invert the divisor and multiply.

 

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One half = 1/2. So try 1/2 x 1/2 = (1 x 1) / (2 x 2) = 1/4 = one quarter. 1 half of a quarter = 1/2 x 1/4 = (1 x 1) / (2 x 4) = 1/8, etc.

 

An what was you'r reply.???

 

It's a half.

 

Lol, true to the question as posed. Drop the first "a" and the question can be answered in context of mathematics, not semantics.

 

My barber asked easier questions:::

Which weighs more... a pound of rocks or a pound of feathers

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That's easy, but what falls faster, a pound of rock or a pound of feathers?
Or, what falls faster, a bowling ball made from plastic, or a same size wooden bowling ball?

 

Good queston... i perpose an experiment:::

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MZx1A_wYErY/Tw50eFi1obI/AAAAAAAAAlE/uSJP2nIgMxQ/s1600/Galileo.jpg

 

Which weighs more an ounce of gold or an ounce of feathers?

My greengrocer used to ask me a different question.
He used to ask me how many inches there were in a metre.
39.37 I still remember it.

And my doctor asked me to spell aureomycin.

And my father asked me this one:
"Brothers and sisters have I none, but that man's father is my father's son. How are he and I related?"

Why were all these people asking a child questions like that?

 

I just figured it out today.

 

That's a different answer altogether.
How did you arrive at that?

 

And here I was.., wondering why anyone would ask, What is half & half? In a science thread, no less.

Got to laugh a little every day, even if you are laughing at yourself!

 

That's nothing.
MY doctor asked me if I was gay.

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I never had problems spelling...

 

There actually is a surprising answer to the gold or feathers one, courtesy of Jearl Walker's Flying Circus of Physics, as I recall:

An ounce of gold at the surface of the Earth is much more dense than feathers.
Therefore an ounce of gold DISPLACES LESS AIR than an ounce of feathers.
Therefore the ounce of feathers, owing to a larger displacement of air, is subject to a larger BUOYANT FORCE from the atmosphere.
So if they both start out weighing an ounce, put both on a balance scale in a bell jar and suck out all the air.
All else being equal, the scale will actually tip toward the side with the feathers .

 

Not quite.
Gold (and other precious metals) use a different system - troy weight as opposed to avoirdupois.
At 480 grains, the troy ounce is heavier than the avoirdupois ounce, which weighs 437 1/2 grains (exact by definition), about 10 percent more than the avoirdupois ounce...

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1)if i tell you to dig two and half holes, how many holes did you dig ?
2)if one walks into a forest in a linear path, at what point will they start walking out of that forest ?

edit-
answers:
1)you dug three holes. there's no such thing as a half of a hole.
2) half way.

 

Trooper cleverly took the first "a half" literally and the answer is "a half" of anything (even another half) would still be "a half" in and of itself (regardless what value it leads to).

When you modify the question to "what is half of a half", then the answer would be 1 quarter, because now we speak of a division where "half" is not a value but a function.