And if I make it interactive, it has some non-negligible chance to fail, especially if done with a broader audience.
You don’t have to ask the whole audience. You can ask for a volunteer and ask people to raise their hands if they would be willing to volunteer. Then you pick a person who doesn’t look like a nerd who already knows the problem.
Have a fallback plan:
In case they do successfully answer the question you can ask them to explain why they ask the right questions.
Everyone I’ve tried the 2-4-6 test on thinks really carefully, gets the right answer, and claims never to have heard of it before. It’s really irritating.
Occasionally I try it on someone who isn’t one of my mathsy friends, and they give me that look where ‘The maths-witch is trying to humiliate me again’ and get angry and defensive, so I give up because it’s not worth losing friends over.
You don’t have to ask the whole audience. You can ask for a volunteer and ask people to raise their hands if they would be willing to volunteer. Then you pick a person who doesn’t look like a nerd who already knows the problem.
Have a fallback plan: In case they do successfully answer the question you can ask them to explain why they ask the right questions.
Everyone I’ve tried the 2-4-6 test on thinks really carefully, gets the right answer, and claims never to have heard of it before. It’s really irritating.
Occasionally I try it on someone who isn’t one of my mathsy friends, and they give me that look where ‘The maths-witch is trying to humiliate me again’ and get angry and defensive, so I give up because it’s not worth losing friends over.