Camelot pulls scratchcard amid numerical anarchy
'-6 higher than -8? I'm not having it'
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Camelot has withdrawn its short-lived "Cool Cash" scratchcard after it required a higher than absolute zero grasp of how numbers work to understand it.
According to the Manchester Evening News, to qualify for a prize, punters had to "scratch away a window to reveal a temperature lower than the figure displayed on each card". Sadly, as the card had a decidedly wintery theme, this initially-shown figure was often below zero.
Cue anarchy, as Camelot was beseiged by "dozens" of confused customers who thought they'd won, but suffered a "computer says no" snub.
Among these was Levenshulme's Tina Farrel, a 23-year-old who admitted "she had left school without a maths GCSE". She explained: "On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card the machine said I hadn't.
"I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher, not lower, than -8, but I'm not having it.
"I think Camelot are giving people the wrong impression - the card doesn't say to look for a colder or warmer temperature, it says to look for a higher or lower number. Six is a lower number than 8. Imagine how many people have been misled."
A Camelot spokeswoman said: "The instructions for playing the Cool Cash scratchcard are clear - and are printed on each individual card and in the game procedures available at each retailer. However, because of the potential for player confusion we have decided to withdraw the game."
The Manchester Evening News concludes: "More than 15 million adults in Britain have poor numeracy - the equivalent of a G or below at GCSE maths." ®
COMMENTS
Still fun...
Everything came about because of voltage. Oh well...
I just remembered back in secondary school when I failed a math exam. Funny thing was that one of the problems I got "wrong" according to the teacher was something like this:
3. Monday at noon, a thermometer shows that we are at 11 ºC. By midnight, however, the temp has dropped down to -3 ºC. Whats the difference between these two temperature readings?
Guess what: I answered 14. And according to my teacher, I WAS WRONG. And you know what was the most funny thing about this? More than half of the entire class had also answered 8, confirming my fears that I was surrounded by stupid people. Thank God I transferred to another school (and city) 3 months later.
@ Niall Tracey... and why voltage isn't like temperature.
'Have you ever told anyone to turn "negative right"? No, you say "left".'
Haven't you ever seen the Beatles film "Yellow Submarine"? Right at the end, when the Blue Meanie army is being routed, their leader tries to send them back into battle with the words
"You're advancing the wrong way! Retreat backwards!"
And the #1. reason why voltages and temperatures aren't commensurate in this discussion? You don't root-mean-square a temperature, that's why.
My god.
I've just glanced through some of these comments. People are actually explaining why -6 is higher than -8!!!
"
If a number is positive, then it is greater than a negative number, therefore:
3 > 2 > 1 > 0 > -1 > -2 > -3 etc...
"
Jesus christ, even the Digg crowd wouldn't need an explanation.
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