The bat and ball puzzle most Harvard students got wrong

Transcript

More than half the students at Harvard, MIT, and Princeton got this question wrong. So when I ask you this, take your time. A bat and a ball cost 110 rupees together. The bat costs 100 rupees more than the ball. How much is the ball? Now if you said 10 rupees, you're in very good company and you're also wrong. If the ball is 10, the bat is 110. And that adds up to 120. The ball is actually 5 rupees. And the people who said 10 actually thought this was an easier question than the people who got it right. You see, the bats is not hard. People get it wrong because the wrong answer shows up in their mind first. And it feels so obvious that they never check it once. This is a question of a three question test. And if you saw my Lilypad video, that riddle is question three. And I don't think the test measures how smart you actually are. I think it measures whether you take time before you trust the first thing your brain hands you are. And that's great news because checking is a habit and anyone can build one. And honestly, the answers that need it most are the fast, obvious ones about ourselves. Like I'm just not a match person or it's just too late for me now. So the next time one of these questions shows up, check it twice. The ball was never 10 rupees.

Transcribed automatically from the video, so small errors are possible.