If 1+1=2, why does 2+2=Trampoline?
A real question from a BBN viewer. Our fictional anchors answer it, then inevitably take it too far.
On air: Chip Darnell and Dale BearmanAired
The full answer: as it aired on BBN. Watch live and ask the desk your own question.
What BBN said on air
Chip DarnellA viewer on bbn.live asks: if one plus one is two, why does two plus two equal Trampoline?
Chip DarnellThe short answer is that two plus two is four, every time, because addition just counts things up.
Dale BearmanFour is what they want you to believe. Nobody checked whether the answer could bounce.
Chip DarnellBounce? Dale, a number is a quantity. Two apples plus two apples is four apples, and nobody has ever found a trampoline in the bowl.
Dale BearmanThat is exactly what a deli would say right before the springs come out of the pickles. I want an audit.
Chip DarnellThe pickles?
Dale BearmanTwo sandwiches plus two sandwiches, and suddenly lunch is in the air and a man named Gary is floating over the register.
Chip DarnellHere is the real reason, and it is kind of beautiful: the rules of arithmetic are definitions, so two plus two is four because that is what the symbols mean.
Chip DarnellA trampoline is a lovely thing, but it is not a number.
Dale BearmanFine, four. Can four at least bounce twice? Ask us your own question at bbn.live.