How Old Is the Pilot?
The classic unanswerable word problem: given a plane's speed and passenger count, a student confidently computes the pilot's age, first by dividing, then, when 5 seems too young, by subtracting.
Transcript
[1] "A plane is going 500 mph. There are 100 passengers. How old is the pilot?" "Easy! 500/100 = 5."
[2] "Uh… doesn't that strike you as a little young for a pilot?" "Good point! So it's 500 − 100 = 400."
Use this cartoon
Free for classrooms, worksheets, slides and other non-commercial use under CC BY-NC 4.0, with credit to Ben Orlin.
Cartoon by Ben Orlin, Math with Bad Drawings. https://cartoons.mathwithbaddrawings.com/2020-02-19-how-old-is-the-pilot/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)