A riddle:
One day you decide to pay a visit to your next door neighbor, who happens to be a math teacher. As you walk in, you notice the house number on his door. As you are talking to your neighbor, you say to him, “I’ve forgotten the ages of your daughters.”
“Well,” says your neighbor, “I’ll give you some clues. The product of their three ages is 36, and the sum of their ages is the same as our house number.”
You think for a moment, and then say, “I don’t have enough information. Can you give me one more clue?”
“Sure,” he responds. “My oldest daughter is a very talented piano player.”
“Ah hah,” you say. “Now I know their ages.”
What are the ages of the girls? (No fair looking this one up.)
Sunday, October 07, 2007
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2 comments:
SPOILER:
The only factorizations of 36 with the same sum are (1, 6, 6) and (2, 2, 9). I figure the answer is (2, 9, 9), but I'm not sure whether it's because six-year-olds can't be talented piano players or a presumption that there's no "oldest daughter" if they're both six.
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