MovieChat Forums > In Time (2011) Discussion > They don't do math anymore?

They don't do math anymore?


If she was celebrating 25th birthday for the 25th time that would make her 49 years old, and not 50 as he said in the movie

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25...+25..is 50.
Or am I missing something here?

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It's in the trivia.

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When she originally turns 25, that's one celebration. So in order to celebrate her birthday 25 times, she needs 24 more (as she already has one). 25 + 24 = 49

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25 plus 25 is 50

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You arent getting it. She celebrates it ONCE on her 25th birthday.. then 24 more times.... 25+24=49

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I am amazed this needs to be laid out...

Maxwell Smart: Ive always wondered why someone would work in a morgue.
Ans: I like to meet people.

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[deleted]

Yes, 25 + 25 = 50 but this is a worded problem which requires you to look at each word and find the meaning behind them, I just turned 25 so that's the first time I've turned 25, got 24 more years to go before I reach my 25th, 25th birthday xD


so the initial 25th birthday is 1(one) and 24(twenty-four) more birthdays is 24 so 1 + (24) = 25 right? so then 24 + 25 would equal 49 would it not? Is this weird or what? it's like..... math or something or maybe it's science... who can know.

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[deleted]

Are you blind? I agree with you that 25 + 25 is 50, But you're missing the meaning behind what I'm saying. I can't help that you are too ignorant to understand basic word problems to successfully grasp this high school level concept. I pity you and your obviously narrow mindedness....

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[deleted]

you must have skipped high school math and for that I'm terribly sorry.

good job 25 + 25 is 50, you know basic middle school math.... actually that would likely by elementary school math because at middle school level you'd be working with multiplication.

obvious me trying to explain how someone who is 25 for the 25th time and adding in the fact that every year you age by a year is not working so I'll leave with one last little try

once you turn 25 you're 25 for the first time correct? so it would take 24 more years for you to have enough 'birthdays' to say you had 25 25th birthdays. if you can't understand this basic concept then you're either retarded or just plain ignorant to the truth.

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[deleted]

Maybe she just worded it incorrectly? She probably meant "I celebrated my birthday 25 MORE times." People usually don't stop to figure out the math while having a casual conversation.

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A dozen or so replies into this thread and yours is the best I've read. Its even more cogent if framed in the culture of the movie.

To wit: In the context of "In Time," years since birth has become insignificant. Combine that with the tendency to "round" numbers and its easy, even sensible, to expect someone to speak of a 49th birthday as being 50.

At the risk of wearing out this line of thought, the characters in "In Time" speak of their clocks as having "a decade," "a century," even "eons" of life remaining. So, (again, within the context of the movie's depicted society) would anyone question a person's math vis: their statements of age if they regarded a 49th birthday as turning 50?

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yes. brains.

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This mathematical error is known as 'fenceposting'.

If I have a need to make a fence 100 yards long and the distance between two posts is 10 yards then I'd need eleven fenceposts and not ten.

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You are correct, but this is obviously beyond most people as evidenced by the responses. Of course, it may not necessarily be a mistake, as it seems most people would naturally make the same mistake (again, as evidenced by the responses). It stands the reason that had he said for the 26th time, it would have seem contrived and like the writers thought about it too much, I guess.

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You are correct

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You are taking her line way too literally. The line was intended to mean 25 birthdays after the first 25, so that is 50. Wow you people have no lives.

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What does that make you for replying on such a thread?

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What does that make you for replying on such a thread?

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Ugh. So what your saying is, people are so stupid that when presented with facts they will take it as an insult? And that justifies films made for general audiences should be careful not to anger all the stupid people of the world and opt instead to insert *beep* into the movie that is factually incorrect or doesn't make sense, to appease the masses of the stupid?

That's pretty disturbing.

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Actually it's closer to 47th birthday, cause you don't remember *beep* til you're older than 3.

The increase in human knowledge is the cause of the decline of religions.

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I remember a lot of things from when I was 2 years old. It freaks my family out.



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Just to let you know, you only embarrassed yourself with your signature. There is no decline in religion. I know you like to live in ignorance and think that the percentage of people who are atheist is increasing, but it isn't. So it shows you are not part of that "increase in human knowledge."

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Don't be so critical. People today are more stupid than ever in recent history. Most of them went to public school and some went to Harvard...so what do you expect?

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[deleted]

I would suggest that, if by "stupid" you mean; lacking in knowledge useful/valuable for functional living, you're wrong.

Globally, the gap between the assemblage of facts known by the most and least educated may be more significant than at any time in human history. But I would propose that world-wide, both more and a greater percentage of humans have an accurate and serviceable grasp of the knowledge needed to survive and thrive in Earth environ than at any previous time in our existence as a species.

BTW, do you have any stats on how many of those "them" who went to public school attended Harvard? Or Stanford, MIT, et al ?

Lastly, I would suggest that very few of those Elite University (caps significant) grads build the world we live in. Their most common role is to take control of productive entities their less-educated fellows have created and become kleptocrats.

But hey, you can dismiss my thoughts because I'm a product of the public school systems the private school elites created.

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For those who don't understand: If she's celebrating her 25th birthday for the 2nd time, then she's 26. If she's celebrating her 25th birthday for the 3rd time, then she's 27. If she's celebrating her 25th birthday for the 4th time, then she's 28. Notice that we're adding 24 to each number; i.e., 24+2(nd time)=26; 24+3(rd time)=27; 24+4(th time)=28. So for the 25th time she'd be 49 (24+25(th time) = 49 years old.

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I spotted the age thing right off the bat, but I didn't make a fuss over it, because, after all, it's just a movie.

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Concise, trenchant and most of all, relevant. Great response.

That said, the issue does raise other issues; about culture, custom, etc. in the context of the society depicted in the movie.

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I see what you mean and yes that would technically make her 49 but I think they made a mistake and didn't think of that. I think they wanted to use the old phrase "turning 25 again" but wanted to sound cooler so they said the 25th times thing. Wouldn't be the first time a hollywood idiot has messed up trying to sound original

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Yeah, so? Obviously Will is not very bright. For some reason you seem to assume that characters can't be wrong as opposed to real life people.

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