Pinecones multiply like rabbits around here...

[Peter Hansen]

Skip Montanaro wrote:
> 
> I was on a walk with my wife and dog yesterday.  Out of the blue I asked her
> "what's the result of five divided by two?"  After a little back-and-forth
> where she tried to figure out how I was trying to trick her and make her
> look foolish she answered, "two-and-a-half".  I then posed, "Suppose you
> have five pinecones and you want to clump them into groups of two.  What
> would you do?".  Her answer was, "Put two in the first group, two in the
> second group, and break the last pinecone in two so the third group would
> have two as well."

I think you might have phrased the second question closer to "Suppose
you have five pinecones and you want to create groups containing
two whole pinecones.  What would you do?".   Would that likely have
elicited a different response?  One with, perhaps, a remainder pinecone?

(Being overly serious, yes, but I did chuckle at the story. :)