Wikipedia:Wikifun/Answers/Task 10

I was very strongly tempted to answer 42 right away... But let's go slow.

The correct answer is, of course,

. You were writing from left to right, as shown by the frog

(cf. egyptian language), which had me stumped for a moment, for although egyptian hieroglyphs could be written in both directions, they were usually written from right to left. meta:MediaWiki_User's_Guide:_WikiHiero_Phonemes (linked from hieroglyphs) told me that V20 was 10, so

would be 60. Plus and minus signs (from [1]) told me that

was a -, since you had written from left to right. The external link given at Egyptian hieroglyphs taught me the signs for 100

and 1

, and thus

had to be 102, since it couldn't be a fraction, which would have looked like

. What the frog

is supposed to mean, I don't know, maybe just "frog"? "102 frogs - 60 frogs = 42 frogs". Erm — what was the question, exactly? Lupo 21:07, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

BTW: sorry for using an extlink, I didn't find the hieroglyphs for 100 and 1 on Wikipedia itself. A hole that needs filling... unless they are somewhere already, of course. Lupo 21:07, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)