I keep getting these riddles in friend group chats where you have to move a stick or two to make the equation correct. Like VI + IV = IX and stuff like that. Is there some technique to it or is it just trial and error? I end up thinking about some of them for hours.
The first thing is to understand that many of these riddles play with visual ambiguity: a stick that looks like part of a number to you can actually form a completely different number or symbol if you move it. For example, if you see VI + IV = IX, you can move a stick from the IX to turn it into XI, or transform the VI into a V, or take a stick away from the sum to make subtraction instead. The trick is to focus on what numbers and symbols *could* be formed if you moved each stick, instead of thinking of the equation as correct from the start. Honestly it's more about imagination than technique: try each movement mentally and see what forms, without assuming the structure has to stay the same.
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