The Square Root Of Intelligence

The mathematical bell curve of intelligence strikes again! This meme brilliantly captures the horseshoe theory of math knowledge. On the left side, people with lower IQ scores simply write √4 = 2, blissfully unaware of negative solutions. In the middle, the sweating intellectual with tears streaming down realizes √4 = ±2 because they've learned about principal and negative roots. Then on the right, the calm 130+ IQ folks circle back to √4 = 2 because they understand that the radical symbol √ specifically denotes the principal square root, which is always positive by definition. The beauty of mathematics is how you can be confidently wrong, anxiously correct, or confidently correct about the same equation depending on your level of education!