A young skinny man comes into the classroom:

– I am your new math teacher. Let’s start our first lesson with a problem. Given: two alligators are flying, one is green, the other is going south, how old am I?

Nobody knows the answer except one pupil:

– You are 28.

-How did you get the answer?

– When I talk nonsense at home my father calls me half smart: I am 14.

Of course this is a joke, but among other variants it has some logic and different ways of searching for answers. Many focus on the alligators’ ability to fly and forget about the main question. Some might question their knowledge of zoology, geography and aerodynamics. Here we have language and cultural nuances like “half smart” that may go in the opposite direction  – i.e. “half stupid,” as well as the possibility that the name of the teacher could be Han Solo, and his pupil could be Chewbacca. Actually, we commonly try to find some numbers like 2 and ratios like .5, but it’s impossible to solve this problem without the age of the pupils. That hints at the need to do additional research. 

This blog is a kind of research and analysis of alligators, and their different species, habitats, colors, etc.