Not a riddle, a Math Mystery.

The riddle thread was a disappointment. Here is a math mystery. Lets see how good the straight dopers are at arithmatic.

Three men come to a cheap hotel. The desk clerk says there is only one room, but they can share it, since it is big. He says that the room is thirty dollars, for the night. Each man gives him a ten dollar bill. The bell boy takes their bags upstairs, the three men go too. When the bell boy gets back the clerk tells him that he forgot that for taking the room for three, instead of three smaller rooms he should have only charged them Twenty-five dollars. He gives the bell boy five dollars, and tells him to give it to the three men. The bell boy decides on the way upstairs that it is easier to split three dollars, than five, and he gives each of the men one dollar, and keeps the other two.

Things go well until the last of the men is leaving, and comments that it was not a bad deal for nine dollars, as he leaves. The clerk demands the money from the bellboy. The bell boy give him the two dollars, but the clerk is not satisfied.

“Each of them men paid nine dollars, right?”
The bellboy nods.
“You just gave me two dollars, right?”
Again the bellboy nods.
“Well. Three times nine is twenty-seven, and you just gave me two, so that’s only twenty nine. Where’s the other dollar?”

So, if you are the bellboy, you have to figure it out, or the clerk kicks your ass.

<P ALIGN=“CENTER”>Tris</P>

Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?
Socrates - last words

Well, $25/3=$8.33 per guy.
The bell hop gave each guy $1 = $3.
So, $25 + 3 = $28 + the remaining $2 = $30.

But who says that the clerk is going to believe that?

OOOOXXXX
OOOOXXXX
XXXX
XXXX
Farmer had three squares of land arranged as the Xs and Os are (maybe) above. He wants to leave all 4 sons an equal amount of land when he dies. How can the farm be divided into 4 equal parts?

The clerk in the OP is an idiot. There’s twenty-five dollars in the register, three dollars with the men, and the bellboy just gave him two. 25 + 3 + 2 = 30.

As for the farmer problem, you need four L-shaped pieces, like so:

XXOO
XMMO
OM
OO

– Sylence


I don’t have an evil side. Just a really, really apathetic one.

Hey, Sylence, you think of one.

Killjoys.

Triskadecamus
Member , I saw that one twenty years ago & it’s still baffling people? :slight_smile:

handy, you should have seen the number of posts following the article Cecil wrote:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a910621.html .
(They’re over on AOL and I’m not going to go get them. Even with the answer, people can argue about this forever.)


Tom~

[evil laughter]

All right, you want a riddle? I’ll start a new thread.

[/evil laughter]
– Sylence


I don’t have an evil side. Just a really, really apathetic one.

From http://fathom.org/teemingmillions/pofunnies.adp

No damned wonder we keep crashing things into Mars.
Dr. Watson.
“Caution: Intellectual Wastes, Next Five miles. Traffic Fines Doubled.”

No damned wonder we keep crashing things into Mars.
Dr. Watson.
“Caution: Intellectual Wastes, Next Five miles. Traffic Fines Doubled.”

Dammit! I’ve got to remember to quit hittin’ that stinking ‘Back Page’ button! Sorry about that folks.

Oh, come on! If you are really smart you beat the crap out of the bellboy and the manager and MAKE money on the whole deal. :wink:

Best!
Byz

In a 5 by 5 grid, put the number from 1 to 25 in the grid such that it adds up to 65 across, up/down, and diagonally.

For a warm up, place the numbers 1 to 9 in a 3 X 3 grid, for a total of 15 in all directions.

Enright3

Trisk: the clerk is making the common mistake of adding to the wrong side of the equation. The men each paid $9, times 3 is 27. The bellboy just gave the clerk two; plus $25 for the cost of the room, and 2 + 25 = 27. You need to lump all the payments in one direction (from the men) on side of the equation, and all the payments in the other direction (to the hotel staff) on the other side.

The stuff Kat quoted was what I wrote after several people explained this seeming puzzle, and the OP just didn’t get it and didn’t get it, and the stupidity level was beyond anything that a mere $30 could buy.

The extra money is a the bottom of the swamp next to the motel and the bellboy’s wearing a dress. LOOK OUT!!! :wink:

Ooh ooh, here’s a good one.

In chess, for those of you who do not know, the queen piece can attack any other piece diagonally, horizontally, or vertically. On a chess board, arrange 8 queens (or pawns and pretend they’re queens) on a chess board so that none of them can attack any other one.

Yes, it can be done. I have solved it before. Good luck [evil laugter]

KJ, I hope it didn’t take you long. It took me longer to find the chess board than to solve it, even this late at knight. (It is not without its charm, but it hardly merits evil laughter.)


Tom~

Yeah, well, the bigger challenge is writing a computer program that solves it for you and shows all possible solutions (though I think there is only 1…or 8 if you count rotating and inverting.)