Is it possible to have 3 halves of something?

Question

This stupid girl I met said she was " Half Italian, Half Puerto Rican and Half Black.

I argued with her for 5 minutes telling her that you can have 3 halves of something.

So, is 3 halves possible?

Or is it like dividing by zero?

And for sure 3 halves do not make a whole right?

Answer 1

Solipsia actually has the most correct answer here and got a thumbs down for it. Somebody apparently can't follow that line of reasoning

That girl's Puerto Rican parent could have been black and the Italian parent white and the statement would be perfectly true. Italian and Puerto Rican are nationalities while black indicates ethnicity. What she DIDN'T say is that she's (or could be) half white too. Four halves and still true.

Answer 2

You can defenitely have 3 halves of pie. 1/2 apple, 1/2 blueberry, 1/2... some other fruit.

Answer 3

Yes, you can have 3 halves, but that doesn't make a whole.  Where's the extra half on this girl, does she have 3 arms, 3 legs and an extra head?

Answer 4

Yes, it is possible to have more than two halves, as long as the halves aren't mutually exclusive.

For example, an object can have a top half, bottom half, left half, right half, front half, back half, etc.

You friend would be telling the truth if one of her parents was a black Italian and the other parent Puerto Rican.

Answer 5

yes it's possible to divide smth into three equal portions, but it wouldn't be called halves in that case. oh, and I'm not sure if this applies on human genetics!

Answer 6

Your ancestery (and your specific genetics, in fact) can only be made out of fraction parts of one over a power of two. All of the pieces sum up to one whole.

So you can be 1/2 something, 1/2² something (which is 1/4), 1/2³ something (1/8), and so on.

This is because each person has two parents and each parent has two parents and so on. So it expands as a power of two.

A person cannot be "one third" something, because 3 will never be in the denominator of their genetics.

You also cannot be more than one whole of something, because your parents each contribute a piece to you. They cannot change that they give a "half". Their parents also give them a half each and so on.

I suppose if you got many extra chromosones, that would be the other half... but I don't know that anyone would want to brag about that. I don't think that counts anyhow.

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3/2 is possible but they don't make one whole, and a person is a whole.

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In response to:

"Italian and Puerto Rican are nationalities while black indicates ethnicity."

The person in this case would be failing to make it clear:

(a) Which of these are nationalities and which are genetic

(b) What the other "half" is and why the other 3/4 are being prioritized

(c) How one can have more than one nationality; it's not inhereted

(d) Why this is being said exactly the way it looks foolish to say it instead of saying it in a clear way (or interesting way)

If this person meant to say something of that nature, it was done in violation of parallelism. If that was being done intentionally as a stylistic choice, it wasn't done in a witty way. Also, any misunderstanding could have been easily cleared up; an argument for five minutes would not be necessary. It would just go like this:

"What I meant was that I am genetically ____ and ____, but my nationality is half ____. Oops, I forgot to mention that I'm half ____."

This all could have been avoided by any kind of clever, meaningful, clearly understood, or interesting statement. The bare minimum would be something like:

"I'm half ____ and half ____, but all American!"

Answer 7

Of course, it is not possible to be half Italian, half Puerto Rican and half "Black" (African). If you have three halves of something, you have one and a half total. She should have just said that she was part Italian, part Puerto Rican, and half Black.