UnOriginalNuttah wrote:
Originally Paid $30 - refund $3 - nicked bit $2 = $25. Whoever wrote this adds the nicked bit to the $27 left after the refund, when they should deduct it from the $27 to find out how much was spent ($25). The clerk doesn't have any missing dollar, and it's nothing to do with fractional numbers. Listen to Snafu_CrplKruz.
It is about fraction and the fact that $25 doesn't divide by three. That website someone posted explains it very simply because it's for Children who don't understand fractions!
I can prove it by changing the 25 to 24 (which does divide by three, now look at the 'problem')
Three men went to a motel. The motel manager said a room cost $30, so each man put up $10 and went to their room. A little while later the manager realized the room was only $24, so he sent the bellhop back to the three guys' room with $6. On the way to the room the bellhop couldn't figure out how to split the $6 between the 3 men, so he gave each one of them $1 and he kept the other $3.
This meant that the 3 men paid $9 each for the room for a total of $27. Add the $3 that the bellhop kept = $30.
Obviously 6 does divide by three so we'll assume the bellhop just wanted to steal some money, but as you can see, when you replace the problem 25 with a number that does go into 3 the riddle loses it's mystery. Hence, the original wording is making you forget about the the three lots of 0.333333r (i.e 1) that is being kept by the clerk, ergo uber you were right in the first place
Last edited by =OBS= EstebanRey (2006-06-05 03:49:48)