Utah Husband Posts Video of Wife Stumped by MPH Math: Is He in the Dog House?

If you're traveling 80 miles per hour, how long does it take you to go 80 miles?

That's the relatively simple math question Travis Chambers posed to wife Chelsea on a road trip from Logan, Utah, to Boise, Idaho, to visit her family while his camera was rolling.

Her husband posted the video on YouTube, titling it, "The real meaning of MPH," where her muddled math has unexpectedly racked up more than 3.5 million views.

"I don't know. Because if I run the mile in like 9 minutes, then, I mean but that's when I'm out of shape," she says in the video. "When I'm really in shape it's like 7 minutes … and that takes me a mile. And we're going 80 miles. And I'm running 10 mph, if that."

Using her own running speed as a basis, and taking into account the tire speed, weight of the car, and whether it's a stick or an automatic, she uses roundabout logic to come up with an educated guess.

"It's got to take like 58 minutes or something," she says, not too far off from the correct answer of 60 minutes.

"Think about 80 miles per hour," her husband says, teasing her as he keeps making faces to the camera. "So how long does it take me to go 80 miles if I'm going 80 miles per hour."

"You are driving faster than a minute a mile," she says to him. "I would whack 80 in half and that's 40."

His teasing continues: "Think about the term MPH. So if I say I'm driving 80 MPH."

"I make sense, you do not make sense," she tells him. "You don't even know the answer."

There's a moment toward the end of the video where she asks him to stop filming. Finally, he relents and tells her the answer:  "The answer is 1 hour. Your guess was close."

 

Travis Chambers told " Good Morning America" he made with video with no malicious intent and that it was nothing more than "affectionate teasing."

"I asked the question and she started answering and I said, 'I have to film this. Her family is going to think this is so funny,'" he explained today. "It was just so funny to me. We were just kind of goofing off, driving home. I think it looks a little worse than it was. …We tease and joke a lot.

The couple, who are both students at Utah State University in Logan, got married in August and the math problem brain freeze happened just before Christmas. He posted the video on YouTube back in December to share with their family and friends. The video had been sitting there, undiscovered for months, and neither one of them expected it to go viral.

"I honestly had no clue what to think," she said about finding out millions had watched her video. "At first I was shocked and then really mad. … Definitely, it was a roller coaster for a while. My emotions were pretty intense."

What YouTubers didn't see, they say, is that Chelsea had been up all night studying for finals the night before and that her brain was completely fried. Plus, they had no radio on the boring car ride to visit her family in Boise and had to keep one another entertained.

Along with millions of views, the video has racked up a lot of comments, with many wondering whether the husband is in hot water with his spouse.

"I was like, 'How could you do this to me?' I was pretty upset, but I realize that our marriage is deeper than that. I can't let this little thing affect how I feel about my husband," she said. "I love him and our relationship has just kind of grown from this."

Her husband does apologize though for any hurt he might have caused his spouse.

"I definitely do apologize to Chelsea for teasing a little bit," he said today. "I'm sorry for the emotional roller coaster it's put you through. I am glad that you are understanding and such a sweet wife and that we are doing well."