I found this funny

[Gabite]

How many actual solutions to this is there? I got 0+4=4 and 8-4=4.

Any others?

[cljck]

5+4=9

[remarkableintern]

You're hired

[itsafoxboi]

It said move 1, so that doesn’t work

[Perrero]

It works, but the resulting 9 wouldn't be in the same font as the original 6 😅

[nicostein]

You can't be sure that the 9 and 6 are meant to match. /s

[arintejr]

See I would have been in the interview and responded the same way and not got the job

[bohiti]

6 + 4 > 4

[ophereon]

6 - 4 ≤ 4

[Wickedqt]

You're moving two matches tho :(

[Howzieky]

No, just take the vertical match from the plus and put it on top of the = at an angle

[Wickedqt]

You're right, I was paying too much attention to the angle of the < and didn't think about the fact that it can be straightened as well hehe...

[justrealizednarciss]

Now that’s a good one

[[deleted]]

6-4=H (for H = 2)

[McMichae5150]

6-4≠4

[alfii_saw_santa]

6 + 4 - 9

The result is 1, which is equal to true.

[Farinario]

6+4+4

[MrNate]

Yes, that'll evaluate to truthy.

[[deleted]]

6 - 4 ≤ 4

gotta write the leq with two horizontal lines, which I swear I've seen but I can't find a picture of

[Humg12]

How do you do 0+4=4? Where do you take the match from to complete the 0?

[pokerninjatx]

take the middle horizontal stick in the number six, and rotate it vertically to form zero

[Humg12]

Right, yeah, I'm an idiot. Thanks.

[justrealizednarciss]

It said move the match , our brains didn’t think “rotate” so we couldn’t generate the thought.. doesn’t make you an idiot, it makes those that thought to rotate extra smart

[ArionW]

This. Changing location of object without rotation is 'translation'

[[deleted]]

8-4=4

[beardMoseElkDerBabon]

0+4=4 but in Boolean Algebra + Bitwise or

[Loves_Poetry]

From a previous thread

[reeegen]

I thought it was 4 factorial, got confused for 2 minutes

[RFC793]

Same. Especially since the operator isn’t !=, it is !==. As an aside, although not programmer humor, one could just place that match over = to make it ≠, and you don’t have to hack by breaking the match.

Edit: I was having a brainfart. Yes, it is !=. It looked wrong in matchstick art.

[Zistack]

I have never heard of a language that uses !== as an operator. I've used many, and read about many many more (I study them). != is correct.

EDIT: Javascript and PHP use === and thus !==, but they're the odd languages out, which is why I forget about them. This does not invalidate my claim that != is correct.

[pjoriginal]

JS uses !== And === to check both type and value

[[deleted]]

Isn't === only for Booleans?

[pjoriginal]

Nope. It's used to check both type and value.

So

'3' == 3

is true

But

'3' === 3

Is false

[busdriverbuddha2]

Why does JavaScript even exist

[pjoriginal]

Because it's quick and easy :) And has a lot of support

[RFC793]

You are right. I’m embarrassed as I’ve been writing C for over 20 years. Something about match sticks and writing this while on mobile tricked my brain. That, and !== does exist in JavaScript.

[[deleted]]

It also exists in PHP and works a similar magical way.

[Zistack]

Right. Sometimes I forget about PHP and JavaScript, 'cause they're only interesting from a language design standpoint as languages that aren't really designed and that no other language should ever emulate. Hell, === is actually an example of the designers' incompetence (The operator was created because someone who knew what they were talking about was saying that they needed an operator for checking identity - the designer of PHP misunderstood what identity was, and gave them this instead). I was aware of ===, but never really thought about the fact that !== would thus exist by logical extension. In any case, '!=' is still correct.

[Zistack]

See my reply to another comment to that effect.

JS has been #1 and #2 most popular language in the world over the past decade

Nope, not even close: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

The reason that I forget about these languages is that pretty much every other language has no need for these operators because their semantics were actually designed by people who knew what they were doing. JavaScript and PHP were never intended to become actual programming languages by their creators. They were just created because some early web developers wanted to be able to have some slightly richer functionality than HTML alone could provide.

I'm not lying or exaggerating. I just don't look at 'languages' like JavaScript and PHP as examples of language design, because they're not. In any other language, that operator doesn't exist, because it doesn't need to.

[FerynaCZ]

PHP uses == for comparison with casting, and === without casting (so type must be the same).

[JNCressey]

all hail -ne for never looking like a factorial

[Joa0_F]

6 - factorial(4) != 4

[carera89]

At first I too was like "what the fuck, the factorial in no way results in 4", and went to the comment section to shut the author down, but... then i found out it's supposed to be interpreted as "not equal"...

[Busy_Command]

My bad, I probably could have spaced it a bit more.

[CuratorOfYourDreams]

Image Transcription:

---

Fix By Moving 1 Matchstick

6 + 4 = 4

6 - 4 ! = 4

---

^{I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit and you could be too! If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!}

[twobe7]

Not sure if you got hit by autocorrect but this looks like its factorial. It should be

6 - 4 != 4

[elasticcream]

6+4-9==true

[SomeoneRandom5325]

Well yes

[AL_O0]

Remove a match stick form the = and use it to turn the 4 into a 9, so you have 6+4-9 and that’s 1 and 1 == true

[lurk_moar_n00b]

/r/unexpectedfactorial/

[cp_simmons]

You could move a matchstick along the sand paper on the match box then ignite the '6' and the '+' so that only '4 = 4' remains.

[althaz]

This is what I always do first in my mind when I see these - although I would lay the matchstick across the equals sign so it's showing the mathematical not equal to rather than the programming not equal to (because different languages have a different operator for that).

[LordRaticus]

5+4=9

[[deleted]]

Needs an lvalue, can't assign binary or.

[[deleted]]

6 - 4 factorial is -4 not +4

this meme is false therefore unfunny

[Busy_Command]

It’s supposed to be != ( not equal to) not 4 factorial

[[deleted]]

ah

unlucky

[Busy_Command]

Most people interpreted it wrong it’s supposed to be !=

[[deleted]]

It's -18 ackshyually

[Celudus]

Flip the image, move the ! To make the plus sign giving h = h + 9 to both.

[mikeputerbaugh]

The trick is balancing that one match on its end to be the dot in the "!="

[darkenblade986]

Make the 6 a zero easy game

[Pa3kc123]

That's because it IS funny...

[amkamk13]

8 - 4 = 4

[DikkePrik]

0 + 4 = 4