It is hardly surprising that a straightforward math brainteaser has gone viral on the internet in the digital age, where content travels like wildfire. The $100 puzzle has garnered millions of views and generated a lot of discussion among puzzle fans. It asks users to calculate the amount of money a store would have lost if a burglar stole a $100 bill and then made a transaction.
The brainteaser, uploaded on X (formerly Twitter) by an account named Out of Context Human Race, depicts an apparent simple situation. A man robs a store of a $100 banknote from the register, uses it to purchase $70 worth of merchandise, and gets $30 back in change. “How much money did the store lose?” is the next query posed.
As the brainteaser became popular on the internet, a ton of answers poured into the comments section. Some people boldly declared that the store had lost $100, but others countered that, after deducting the stolen $100 and the thirty cents in change, the true loss was $130. A few even went so far as to say that the profit margins of the individual transactions determined the store’s overall loss.
