What should have been an exceedingly simple arithmetic problem sparked an hour-long debate between two people on Facebook this week - with the original poster's mother even joining in to help – and ended with dozens of different people chiming in to offer their own answers to the apparently-unsolvable equation.

The frustrating exchange began when one person shared a picture that criticized Obamacare spending by questioning the cost of the healthcare act - $360,000,000 - and proposing that this money should have been divided among the country’s population, which the image claimed would give each person $1,000,000.

However, using straight-forward division, the person who posted the image explained that $360,000,000 divided by 317,000,000 people does not give each person $1,000,000; in fact, it only gives them $1.1356. But, despite his clear and concise logic, there was one person who refused to be convinced.

And so it begins: An hour-long Facebook debate started when one person posted this image and pointed out that the math in it was incorrect

But one of his friends could not be convinced, and even argued that his computer programmer father agreed with his faulty calculations - leading to a seemingly endless back-and-forth that later found its way to Reddit.

Yesterday, a Reddit user and friend of the original Facebook poster shared screengrabs from the maddening exchange, which had played out on his timeline.

It started with the original image, which was created to criticize President Obama, and reads: '317 million people in America and you spend 360 million on just introducing Obamacare? Just give each citizen a million bucks [sic]'.

The poster pointed out, however, that 'this make no sense'. If a million dollars was handed out at a time, that amount could only sustain long enough to be given to 360 people - because $360,000,000 divided by $1,000,000 equals 360.

Breaking the Math Down 360,000,000 (dollars) ÷ 317,000,000 (people) = 1.1356 (dollars per person) 1.1356 rounds up to $1.14, or down to $1.13 if rationing out an actual limited amount of money Advertisement

If, in fact, that $360,000,000 was equally divided among 317,000,000 citizens, it would result in each person getting roughly $1.14.

Unfortunately, one of the poster's Facebook friends didn't see it that way. He was convinced that the original photo was right, arguing that each citizen could receive a million dollars, and the country would still have $43,000,000 left over.

But instead of letting the friend go on believing that his incorrect calculations were right, the original poster decided to break it down - and that's where things started to spiral out of control.

The friend, whose identity is obscured with the a red line, wrote: '317 million is 1 million 317 times...360 million is 1 million 360 million times, 317 is smaller than 360.'

While the first part of his comment is correct, he added an extra use of the word 'million' in the second part of the equation, making it incorrect. Following his thought process, the number 360 million is one million only 360 times - not 360 million times.

Oh dear: The poster's friend argued that the picture's math was right, mistakenly explaining that you could divide $360,000,000 among 317,000,000 people and still have $43,000,000 left over

Like talking to a wall: The original poster tired to explain in several different ways why his friend misunderstood the equation

The original poster, whose identity is obscured with a blue line, answered correctly: 'So you could only give 1 million dollars to 360 people.'

The two continued to go back and forth, more or less repeating the same arguments. The friend even tried to argue his faulty point another way, writing: 'If you have 317 people and 360 chickens, does everyone get a chicken? Yes.'

It seems that the friend got confused when dealing with numbers in millions, dropping the extra zeros while doing the division to make it simpler, but then mistakenly adding them back on to his final number. The original poster even tried to tell him this, pointing out that he got his 'units confused'.

'No one is saying 360 - 317 isn't 43,' he explained.

But despite his initially correct calculation, the original poster went on to hurt his own argument by saying that, if you gave one million dollars to 317 million people, it would cost 2.3 trillion dollars.

So confused: Unfortunately, the original poster muddled his argument by introducing some of his own faulty math into the conversation

Help! The original poster's mom joined in, too, attempting to add some authority to the discussion

The friend - whose calculations have been wrong all along - can tell that this new sum isn't correct, bolstering his self-assurance that he is right about the original calculation as well.

At that point, the original poster's mother decided to try to help out, explaining that she hadn't yet jumped in because 'this is really my entertainment for the afternoon'.

She told the friend that he was incorrect - and passive-aggressively adding smiley faces to his comments didn't change that fact.

'I'm trying to think of a different way to help you understand this so it makes sense,' she said, to which the friend pompously replied: 'Hey me too!'

She told him to grab a calculator and gave him several different ways to do the math correctly, explaining: 'You are giving each person a SINGLE thing. If you are giving one million dollars, you are giving them one million things.'

Cluelessly, the friend replied: 'Exactly! [You are giving them] to a million people though so it's the same math, just added zeros.'

Back to school: The friend seemed to have trouble doing math in millions, dropping the extra zeros while dividing but then wrongly adding them back on to his final calculation

Scary thought: The friend even claimed that his father, a 'vice president of computer programming', agreed with the faulty math

He then added that his father, a 'vice president of computer programming', agreed with his incorrect calculations, to which the original poster replied: 'Well that's alarming.'

Finally, the friend decided it was time for him to bow out - still convinced that he had been correct: 'This is worse than the black and blue dress. I'm out folks, nice playing with you.'

He was referring to the infamous two-tone dress, first shared online this February, which led to a widespread internet debate over its true colors. While some argued that the dress was black and blue, others said it was white and gold.

After the entire exasperating math affair was posted in screengrabs on Reddit, nearly two thousand people chimed in to poke fun at the friend and share their own reactions to the debate.

'After reading through the first seven images, even my brain started to struggle with what was at first a simple problem,' wrote one Reddit user. 'I felt like I was being indoctrinated with bad math for reading that much and trying to understand just where the guy was coming from.'

'I think I just got brain cancer,' wrote another.

One more added: 'This guy was so convinced in his argument, and so oblivious to everyone else, that I almost started to believe him... it's been a long day.'