Visual Challenge: The Puzzle’s Fifth Number Is Not As Hard To Find As You Think

A visual challenge circulating on Facebook has people staring at a distorted image like a difficult math puzzle.

The challenge, which was posted on the Brain Dare Facebook page, shows a jumbled mix of numbers.

At first sight, the three numbers that stand out the most within the visual challenge’s jumbled image are 6, 9, and 4. The circles that essentially connect the six and the nine together easily form an eight, which many many view as the math puzzle’s fourth number. However, that is apparently not where this confusing visual challenge comes to an end.

The instructions provided below the distorted image remind you that those four numbers are just the tip of the iceberg.

“Share if you can see more than 4 numbers, not many can!”

Knowing that “not many can” may cause most people to dive right back into the visual challenge, dissecting every single line and marking to make sure that they are not missing anything.

The key to solving this particular math puzzle is to not pay attention to the direction of the numbers. In the standard image, you view the first four numbers — 4, 6, 8 and 9 — as vertical, right-side up digits. However, in order to locate the rest of the numbers you may need to get a little more creative and flexible when it comes to the directions.

For example, do you see the number seven in this visually challenging math puzzle?

As you can see, in order to find the “7,” you essentially needed to look at the distorted visual challenge upside down. To find the remaining numbers, though, a right-side up examination of the math puzzle will suffice.

For instance, “1” and “2” are basically connected to one another in the lower half of the math puzzle.

According to the official solution provided by Brain Dare, the visual challenge also shows the number “3.” The number is found within the number “8” — you have to split the number in half and the right half of the number “8” is the number “3.” However, that particular number is not going over so well on Facebook. Quite a few comments share negative reactions to the number 3 being considered part of this math puzzle simply because you have to dissect a number to “make” a number.

Even if you don’t consider the “3” as a legitimate solution for this online math puzzle, there are still seven other numbers — 1, 2,4, 6, 7, 8 and 9 — that agreeably do count in this visual challenge.

Brain Dare is known for circulating confusing math puzzles, brain teasers and riddles on the popular social media platform. In most of the page’s posts, they provide a link to the solutions within the post’s description.

There are quite a few other popular puzzles and puzzling pictures posted on the Facebook page that are just as confusing as this particular visual challenge — if not more confusing.

For instance, Brain Dare posted a math puzzle on Facebook earlier this month that gave values to a relatively short list of items.

The key to solving this math puzzle is not to focus too much on the actual items themselves. When you think of a car being equal to five and a human being equal to 8, you might start to analyze the size difference between the two items. You may even pay close attention to how the items interact with one another. However, the solution apparently has nothing to do with the actual items at all. You have to focus on the way that the items are spelled — giving values to each of the letters used that will equal the provided amounts.

According to Brain Dare, the consonants are 2 each and the vowels are 1. The word human has 3 consonants (3 x 2 = 6) and 2 vowels (2 x 1 = 2) which is how the sum of those “letters” is 8. The letter list and the visual challenge both prove that most math puzzles are not as difficult to solve as they seem initially. The key (and perhaps the trickiest part of the process) is to make sure that you have the correct perspective when solving them.

[Image via Shutterstock]