Mile Marker

''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 itâ€™s state flag and other decoration. The justification behind different units was ultimately deemed invalid.''

Jim Bernard Sr. (the Sr. to the Jr. that brought us Jack Trice and Guthrie), sends in this mathematically significant mile marker from Iowa. The father-son ties are strong with this sign being within a mile of Guthrie. This sign was riddled with some debate as it very clearly tickles with rule #3 requiring only natural numbers. After all, it seems obvious that the 7 is indicative of 88.7 and would thus be ruled invalid. However, when pressed for justification Mr. Bernard provided a very clear and logical argument.

 It seems that this is a question of decimals, integers and units. My view is that we have three kinds of units associated with integers in this sign: 35, an integer with comes from the federal government and indicates a highway, let's call this highway units; 88, an integer which indicates miles from some base point, let's call this mile units; and 7, an integer which indicates tenths of a mile from some base point, let's call this tenths of a mile units.

Indeed this sign escapes rule #3 by an incredibly thin margin. If the sign contained a "." (which is more normal than the color differentiation), it clearly would not be allowed in Road Sign Math.



While the sign is very exciting, the math is yet another example of the most common pi calculation, 22 over 7.

$${88 \over {35 - 7}} \equiv 3.142857 \equiv 3.14 \equiv \pi$$

This sign is found in Iowa on southbound I-35, a few miles north of Des Moines.