A Mathematician Breaks Down an Incredibly Hard Card-Based Math Problem

It'll break your brain.
Derya Ozdemir

This one comes for the mathematics and film aficionados: In the movie 'X+Y', a teenage math prodigy struggling to build relationships with others develops a blossoming friendship with a young girl while competing at the International Mathematics Olympiad. There is this scene where a math problem involving random cards makes an appearance and it has captured the interest of the internet.

In this video by the YouTube channel Mathologer, you can find a comprehensive explanation of the answer to that question. This problem was invented by Michael Albert, a mathematician and computer scientist working at the New Zealand's University of Otago, and it was actually suggested to the movie makers by Lee Zhao, who was one of the maths consultants of the movie. Moreover, the four-color puzzle at the end of the video was created specifically for the movie by Geoff Smith, a U.K. mathematician who also served as a math consultant. If you want to see the problem and try solving it before finding out the answer, make sure you watch the video above, and as always, enjoy.