Horses

[Darwinian]

A father dies leaving instructions that his 17 horses are to be split up between his 3 sons as follows -

Half the horses are to go to the eldest son, a third of the horses are to go to the middle son and a ninth of the horses are to go to the youngest son.

Failing to come to a solution that would share the horses fairly without resorting to cutting any of them in half they called their uncle who lived on the other side of the ranch. He soon arrived on his old, flea ridden horse and quickly came up with a solution to their problem.

What did he suggest?

[Tiberius]

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Take the old horse that the uncle rode in on and add it to the 17 horses you have already.

Half of 18 is 9, so 9 go to the eldest son. A third of 18 is 6, so 6 go to the eldest son. A ninth of 18 is 2, so 2 go to the youngest son.

9 + 6 + 2 = 17

Which leaves the uncle with his original horse to ride home on

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I love that one.

[LukeMC]

Haha, how very quaint And it didn't even take me too long to figure out why it works

[Welsh cake]

A father dies leaving instructions that his 17 horses are to be split up between his 3 sons

What about Inheritance Tax?

[theblindferrengi]

Forget Hygenically challenged Uncle Jimbo and his pseudo-math, this can be solved by simple algebraic substitution.

The eldest son will be person A, and he gets a 1/2 share of the horses. A = (1/2)
The middle son will be person B, and he gets a 1/3 share of the horses. B = (1/3)
The youngest son will be person C, and he gets a 1/9 share of the horses. C = (1/9)

A = (3/2)B = (9/2)C
B = (2/3)A = 3C
C = (2/9)A = (1/3)B
A + B + C = 17

All of these are true according to the problem.

A + B + C = 17 → The horses are 17, so the sum the all the sons shares must be 17.

A + (2/3)A + (2/9)A = 17 → First subtitute B & C for terms of A so that the equation has one variable.

(17/9)A = 17 → Simplify.

(9/17)*(17/9)A = 17*(9/17) → Multiply both sides by (9/17) (the inverse of (17/9)) to solve for A.

A = 9 → Solution.


After doing this for B and C also you find that A=9, B=6 and C=2.

[Violet]

True... but these 'ranchers' were probably from Texas :S Let's just be impressed that Uncle Jimbo was able to come to the correct solution so quickly