Solutions to Alice in Borderland 3 questions
If you’ve already binged through Netflix’s Alice in Borderland season 3, you’re probably wondering if you could solve the math problems and trivia questions that were thrown into game 2, Sacred Fortunes.
Whether you were screaming at your screen trying to solve the equations faster than Arisu, or just sitting there like, “Yup, I’d be dead by question one,” this season gave us plenty of moments that triggered flashbacks to dreaded PSLE maths questions. Here are the solutions to 7 of those questions featured in the show.
Disclaimer: Spoilers ahead – and possibly memories of good ol’ secondary school days.
Table of Contents
1. Sacred Fortunes’ arithmetic problem
Solve the equation: 12-(-3) x {1/4 ÷ [-1/2]2}
For math nerds, this one’s probably one of the easier arithmetic equations to solve among the other math problems featured in the show. For the rest of us, it might have brought back haunting memories of teachers hounding us to show each step of our calculations to see how we got the final answer.
Image credit: John Huang via Facebook
Let’s break it down step by step, following the PEMDAS/BODMAS rules:
Step 1: Solve the exponent inside the innermost bracket
[-½]2= (-½) x (-½) = ¼
Step 2: Solve the division inside the curly brackets
¼ ÷ ¼ = 1
Step 3: Perform the multiplication
(-3) x 1 = -3
Step 4: Perform the subtraction
12-(-3) = 12+3 = 15
Answer: 15
2. The Birthday Problem
How many people need to gather for the probability of 2 sharing a birthday to exceed 50%?
Sharing the limelight with another person on your special day is bad enough. Now, to have to think about a math problem on the probability of that happening is another headache we don’t want to take on. So, while we dig into a giant matcha cake, we let AI solve the birthday problem for us.
Before we get to the right answer, the options given on the show were:
- 23
- 78
- 183
- 365
What would you have guessed, given that there are 365 days a year?
Image credit: Eatbook
Let’s assume the probability that no 2 people share a birthday is event A. Subtracting that from a 100% chance will give us the probability of the opposite event – i.e. at least 2 do share a birthday. Then:
PA (at least one shared birthday) = 1−PA (no shared birthdays)
Let D = 365 days in a year and n = number of people in the group.
Person 1’s birthday is on any day of the year, so:
P1 = 365/365 = 1
Person 2’s birthday has to be on any of the other 364 days left, so:
P2 = 365-1/365 = 364/365
Person 3’s birthday has to be on the other 363 days left so as not to overlap, and so on. This means that Person n must not share a birthday with any of the previous people before them, i.e. n-1 people. And there are 365 – (n-1) remaining days.
Pn = 365 – (n-1)/365
Now, the probability that all the people in this group of n number of people don’t share a birthday is the product of all their individual probabilities:
PA = P1 x P2 x P3 x … x Pn
PA = 365/365 x 364/365 x 363/365 x … x 365 – (n-1)/365
PA = P(365, n) / 365n = 365! / (365-n)! · 365n
For PA to be < 0.5, the smallest integer is n=23.
For those who simply can’t math, the player in the show guessed 78, which was kind of the middle ground. Knowing the penalty, in all honesty, that wasn’t the worst strategy; if you’ve been failing math your whole life, it helps you minimise expected flaming arrows coming your way.
Having said that, you should probably get your teammates to find a good hiding spot while you lock in your answer… instead of standing around in an open firing zone thinking you’ve got it right.
Answer: 23
3. Roman numerals
The Roman numeral I is 1, V is 5, and X is 10. What does L equal?
If you’re an ordinary human being like most of us common folks, chances are you only know the first few Roman numerals like those that feature on a clock. Most of us would be stumped by what L could be, given that we are more familiar with the Hindu-Arabic numeral system largely used today.
Image credit: Nanzui Palomino via Pexels
Well, here’s a new fun fact to add to your general knowledge:
| Roman numeral | Value |
| I | 1 |
| V | 5 |
| X | 10 |
| L | 50 |
| C | 100 |
| D | 500 |
| M | 1,000 |
Answer: 50
4. World population
What is the current total population of planet Earth?
@dnl.jy AIB S3: Sacred Fortune (Tenth Draw) this scene had my anxiety 📈📉 totally fvcked up #aliceinborderland #aibseason3 #fyp #series
While not exactly a math problem, perhaps the world population question relies on some general knowledge and making an educated guess. According to the United Nations estimates, the current population is about 8.2 billion people. The real numbers are already 200 million more than the show’s correct answer, which was shown as 8 billion.
Answer: 8.232 billion
5. Cow’s blood & milk
Milk is made from nutrients in a cow’s blood. How many litres of blood are needed to make 1 litre of milk?
Less of a math problem and perhaps more of a scientific one, this question on a cow’s blood and milk will probably surprise you with the answer.
Image credit: Hyeong via Facebook
Who would have thought that that much blood is needed to produce just 1 litre of milk?
Answer: 450 litres
6. Blood flow
How long does it take for blood pumped from the heart to make one round trip around the human body?
You might think this one is common sense, but it could get a little tricky. The options given were:
- 5 seconds
- 30 seconds
- 80 seconds
Screenshot from: The Smart Local via YouTube
By process of elimination, 5 seconds would be a little ridiculous – we’re still human after all. That leaves 30 seconds and 80 seconds, both of which seem fairly plausible.
Now, if you think logically about why blood circulates, you might recall its function of supplying oxygen to all the cells in the body. That’s a really important job, so it wouldn’t be wrong to come to the conclusion that it would need to be done quickly for major organs to keep working. Therefore, choosing half a minute seems the most reasonable.
Answer: 30 seconds
7. Lion number
50 zoo animals are flipped over sequentially. What was the lion’s number in the sequence?
Trick question? Riddle? We can’t decide. This is probably one of the sillier questions of the bunch and requires some visualisation plus creativity to get to the answer.
The anticlimactic solution is: LION flipped upside down is NO17.
Answer: 17
Alice in Borderland season 3 questions that had us stumped
After seeing Arisu and Usagi blaze through those problems, it’s safe to say that Alice in Borderland season 3 wasn’t just survival of the fittest; it was survival of the nerdiest. Honestly, props to anyone who managed to pause Netflix and actually solve one before the characters did. The rest of us were too busy praying the “game master” wouldn’t start asking for our working.
If there’s ever a Season 4, we can only hope the next batch of challenges involves something less mentally traumatic. Until then, we’ll be brushing up on our math and trivia knowledge, just in case we ever wake up in a Shibuya full of laser beams.
Watch Alice in Borderland on Netflix
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Cover image adapted from: John Huang & Hyeong via Facebook