Pick your odd one

by Huma Sattar

The last time I wrote a post, I promised my readers (real and imaginary both) that I would tell them just why I became a mathematics major but I realized, that kind of a thing can NOT be covered in a single post. I have however decided to postpone it a teeny bit, much to the chagrin of my less-procastinating-conscience.

But if someone’s listening, here is a little ‘Pick the odd one out’- it should be interesting.

Incase someone here is going to point out that this is not math; it is. Puzzles, logic, critical reasoning and on to the big words: decision analysis, game theory, optimization, constrained optimization, it is all math. It is still math if you are not computing anything or using a formula. It is still math if you are drawing lines and dots and joining them together (Ever heard of graph theory)… so yes. *insert self-important smirk here* While you solve this puzzle, I will sit down to make good on my promise.

17 Comments to “Pick your odd one”

  1. The last triangle in both cases?

  2. Hmmm i would then say the circle based on the fact that all the other figures are 3 sided :S

    ive a feeling im wrong!

  3. The first triangle. Of the remaining four, each of them has a quality that is different from ALL of the rest of them. The first triangle does not have any particular quality that separates it from ALL of the rest.

  4. The 1st triangle, as it’s the only one that isn’t an obvious ‘odd one out’

  5. Well at first i thought it was the top right triangle since it doesn’t have a black line around its edges. Then i thought it could also be the middle triangle for having a different color, or maybe the bottom triangle for being small or the circle for well.. being a circle. So thinking about it, i noticed that every item is the odd one out in some way.. except for the top left triangle. So i tried to think in what way it is the odd one out too, and then it hit me. It is the odd one for being the only item that is not the odd one out in any way!
    So my answer is the top left triangle.

  6. It’s the first triange, because it’s the only one that cannot be singled out in some way: the second is off-color, the 3rd is missing an outline, the 4th is a circle, the fifth is too small. So since the 1st one is the only one with no unique traits, that itself becomes its unique trait.

  7. There are a few answers which can be easily argued for:
    1.The lighter shaded triangle because it has a different colour
    2.The triangle to the far right because it doesn’t have a boarder around it
    3.The circle as it isn’t a triangle

    My answer though would be the empty space in the bottom right because all the other shapes all share at least two of their charicteristics with some of the other shapes. The empty space though doesn’t share its colour, shape or size with any other shape, it could be said that the empty space hasn’t got a boarder but it hasent got a shape to be boardered so I would say that it doesn’t share its boardering with anything else.

  8. It’s the first triangle, it is the only one that isn’t different in terms of border, shape, color or size.

  9. they are all unique so no one can be the odd one out!

  10. Hohoho I love these. Very serious, (sometimes a bit too serious) but often revealing of a lack of proper intelligence in the puzzle designer. This is one such: there is no unique answer since “oddness” has not properly defined. Indeed the top right triangle is odd in that it is the least odd. A quite peculiar definition of oddness though, in some respects. The bottom right-hand space is also odd (good answer!). Also, however, the small triangle is odd (in some senses the oddest) and, amusingly, with a proper definition of “oddness” may be used to fill in the next three boxes, though the uniqueness of this will depend on the kind and range of the oddness. The reason the wee triangle can be considered the oddest is that it differs in two respects from each of its nearest neighbours. That is, to each of its neighbours it appears really quite odd. The top right triangle is the next oddest, being doubly odd with respect to the middle top triangle, but only singly odd with respect to the white triangle on the white background at the bottom right. Note, however, that one can make the top right triangle the oddest by changing the shape of this white figure. Keeping the white triangle however, and placing the centre of oddity a little above and to the right of the small triangle, the next row could be … well have fun filling it in!
    P.S. The bounding box (rectangle) is also odd in that is less regular than any of the other figures in the figure. Then again, there is always the space outside the box!

    • Hahhaa, I must applaud your attempt. However, when we say “pick the odd one”, we mean, pick the most different one out (from the options provided) and this meaning is consistent with ALL such puzzles. Since we are most definitely picking an object from the box, the space inside or outside cannot be the options, But since I did not specify you had to pick an ‘object’ out of the ‘box’, you get points for being mighty clever. Funnily enough, the box is provided by the inbuilt wordpress theme that I am using or you would not have seen the ‘rectangle at all.
      Essentially, in such puzzles, you have to compare and contrasts. All you have to do is to look at an object’s characteristics; it doesn’t matter if it looks odd or not, because the small triangle looks the oddest; it is not.

  11. They are all odd ones out with respect to the others.

  12. Fun though isn’t it? As to why mathematics? For me because it enables things to be thought which one otherwise could not think. Brain software. More potent than another language (because only a few new concepts are added per language) or most other fields (because these lead you merely to things you may not have thought about rather than to quite new thinking). Yes I am aware of the unwritten rules of these things. Always more fun to break the rules though huh? Intelligence tests, for example, measure best the intelligence of the tester. Metatesting. It is amusing to find reasons for the greatest oddity of each (here I used proximity for the wee triangle). Ok following the rules a little better and assuming there exist five objects randomly placed in an imaginary bag, with no relevance to order or to placement of said objects, and assuming them to be two-dimensional figures lets invent a set of (five) algebras of the forms where each and every one may be shown to be the most odd. You are allowed implicit ordering of the objects in themselves (inside to outside, or vice-versa) and may invent numbers or operations to be represented by colours, shapes boundaries or intensity. The question is: is it possible to find a set of five rational systems in each of which one and only one such object is the most odd? The answer would then depend on which invented system was the most rational, or perhaps the simplest, or maybe the most beautiful. Are these answers the same and and which (if any) of these correspond to the answer to the conventional puzzle?

    • My problem with your question is a logical one. An odd object exists because of similarity around other objects. You can only ever find something different because the others are similar. If all are odd, then none is odd and .do I understand you correct?
      ..It is interesting however when you say that you put five objects in a bag with some oddness to each; which would be the oddest?

  13. Hmm two comments on my last comment. One I forgot size, which could also be assigned to a quantity or an operation. Also size (like shape) has no obvious implicate order (from inside to outside for example) and so is more powerful than intensity is some systems one could invent. Two, one cannot infer all three of boundary, colour and intensity as independent options from the given five shapes since the difference between 1 and 2 may be either in intensity or in colour of filling. Also taking intensity one could allow binary (black/white and dark/light) or base 4 with black/dark/light/white (or no boundary) values. Enough freedom for a lot of fun!

    • I like the intensity and colour of filling thought. To tell you the truth, that did not even occur to me but still does not change how we are looking at the oddness. That is just one more option that is there to consider

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