|
Subj:.....The
Miser's Puzzle (S644)
From the book
"More Mathematical Puzzles of Sam Loyd"
Edited by Martin Gardner
From: Dover Publications in 1960
What
is the least amount of money that the
miser
could have had?
A certain miser, before
he starved to death, hoarded up a
quantity of five-,
ten-, and twenty-dollar gold pieces.
He kept them in five
bags that were exactly alike in that
each bag contained
the same number of five-dollar pieces,
the same number of
ten-dollar pieces, and the same number
of twenty-dollar
pieces.
The miser counted
his treasure by pouring it all on the
table, then dividing
it into four piles, that were also
exactly alike in
containing the same amount of each type
of coin. His
final step was to take any two of these
piles, put them together,
then divide their coins into
three piles which
were exactly alike in the sense already
explained.
It should now be an easy matter to guess the
least amount of money
that this poor, old man could have
had. |
.
...