Road Sign Math

James Bernard captured this sign after passing under it at least 50 times without recognizing the mathematical significance that it was hiding.

Mr. Bernard applied some very nice crunching to make this sign unwind.
((\sqrt{9})! \times 14) - 15 = 69
This sign is on westbound highway 235 in Des Moines, Iowa. See sign on map!

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Ed.: Upon significant review, and the further clarification provided in rule 3a, this sign has been deemed invalid because it implicitly contains a decimal number. The post and the feedback for it will continue to be available here, however since this sign is not a winner it has been stripped of it’s state flag and [...]

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Dave Oosterhuis contributes this sign pair from Davenport, Iowa. It seems to be a fairly common practice for a math loving city to put multiple road signs on the freeways that show similar mathematical relationships (see Welcome To Omaha and Welcome to Albuquerque). Davenport joins in the fun but adds a little sprinkle of [...]

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Dave Oosterhuis and his wife Phoebe continue their journey to Iowa City for homecoming weekend and along the way come across more mathematically significant roadsigns. This time they found math in the sign notifying them of the 137 households of Brandon, Iowa.
This sign has an unmistakeable similarity to Three Types, the very first sign [...]

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This week on Road Sign Math continues to be brought to you by Dave Oosterhuis and his wife Phoebe. This sign brings us closer to their final destination as they cross into Iowa, as it points the way to a rather interesting set of cities. New Hampton sounds like a place where you could get [...]

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This winning sign takes us to Des Moines, Iowa and is the second submission from fellow enthusiast for mathematically significant road signs and Iowa native, Jim Bernard. This sign is best described in Jim’s own words.

Dear Road Sign Math,
Please find my respectful submission to your totally awesome game. I took this picture while driving [...]

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This winning sign takes us to beautiful Ames, Iowa, where biotech comes to life. You may know Ames for the University, but it is also well known for housing the USDA Veterinary Labs (one of only two in the country). Ames is a city filled with history, including a nod to the first black college football [...]

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Road Sign Math is a particularly difficult game to play with signs that have only two numbers (remember, by the rules in mileage signs you are not allowed to use any road numbers, only distance indicators). The lack of a third (or more) number requires you to use math functions that requires only a [...]

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The inaugural sign for Road Sign Math! This sign is interesting because it takes three numbers from three different sources. The exit number, the road number and the distance.

The math is very simple. (Remember the rules, in signs like this we can omit the “W“ on the road number 36!)
36 - 35 = 1
This [...]

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