If you don’t do the math when you’re building something, you could get a big bad surprise. Back in 1919, a guy named J.D. McMahon was hired to build a “skyscraper” with a height of 480… but he never said 480 feet. So he built a skyscraper 480 INCHES tall, which comes to only 40 feet! That cost him a lot less money to build, and he kept all the leftover money. The Newby-McMahon Building still stands today as the world’s shortest, silliest skyscraper.
Lace up: Most skyscrapers look like a rectangle from the side. How many sides does a rectangle have?
Jog: Which is taller, a 40-foot tall building or a 400-foot tall building?
Sprint: If they started building this little building in February 1919 and took 3 months, in what month did they finish?
Hurdle: If the building should have cost $2,000, but people gave McMahon 12 times as much money to build it, how much money did they give him?
High Jump: If your house is 24 feet tall and you build a tower that’s 1.5 times as tall as that, how tall is the tower?
Answers:
Lace up: 4 sides.
Jog: The 400-foot building is taller.
Sprint: May of 1919.
Hurdle: $24,000.
High Jump: 36 feet tall!
