h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In the words of a friend of mine 'I'm having a blonde moment...' I wish I'd understood maths 6 years ago when I was doing my GCSEs. At the time it seemed useless, apart from getting me onto the next rung of the academic ladder. Now I've found a vocational use, I'm stuck. Trying to work out the proportions of a facade in Dublin, I've ended up with the following calculation:

if:
Y=X
2V=W
3T=W
2A=2TY
6A=3Y2W
B=WY

how do I work out:
26A+7B=N
so that I get the sizes of Vs, Ws, Ys, and Ts (N, btw, is 35.8m). I got as far as N=177T, which is quite obviously wrong as a) it doesn't answer the question and b) B and A are roughly equal, A being glass and B being columns, which I think makes B rather small, in which case the building would collapse. Incorrect. Perhaps it should be 26A+7B+the_biggest_eaves_in_history=N. No! Confused In four short hours I've managed to make this more complex than anything I tackled (mathematically at least) in 'A' Level Physics. I think the lesson in this is that I'm not going to make the grade should I decide to become a structural engineer. I think I'll just go away and guess it, like all good architecture students. Knowing me, I'll come up with the answer within seconds of posting this.

nb., apologies to those of the fairer follicle for the above quote not exactly being PC.

I didn't understand a word of that. Not a word.

Do I win £5?

I'm sorry, that is the *wrong* answer! You lose the sofa, the dishwasher and your first born daughter

OK OK, I'll give you the £5. 'Fraid I don't have it on me just at the mo. Can I get you a drink or two at the F&F instead?

don't have an answer for you but 1 question

say I had ten to the power of 2 it would = 10 * 10 = 100, yes

but if I had ten to the power of 0 apparantly it = one why and what is the working of the question no one has ever been able to tell me the answer to this.

please help

Surely 10 to the power 0 is 0? I dunno - it's years since I did maths and even then I wasn't that good at it. Don't have any maths books to hand, either.

naa on my calculator on my computor and my hand held one it comes out as 1 also with 11 12 13 ect.

*tries it himself*

OK, I agree. Well, that makes two of us who don't know