Who can solve this problem?

[Vaskez]

Originally posted by Avatar: Mmmm, 36 being such a good number with many factors that this is surely a linguistic problem rather. all viable options that has the product to 36 seems okay to me as long as there is one oldest. depends how you define toddler, baby or teenager.

Oh I give up! Some people just have no sense of logic. You lot are bloody useless!

[Zero Alpha]

Originally posted by Vaskez: Oh I give up! Some people just have no sense of logic. You lot are bloody useless!

Dont insult us. just because you didnt phrase the question clearly enough, doesnt meant we are 'bloody useless'. maths problems most commonly include a specified set of information. normaly you have no need to 'decode' clues like the violin, and the house number if it is a maths problem. had it been a riddle then you would have had to, which is why that is how it was largely interprited.

[Vaskez]

Originally posted by Zero Alpha: quote: Originally posted by Vaskez: Oh I give up! Some people just have no sense of logic. You lot are bloody useless!

Dont insult us. just because you didnt phrase the question clearly enough, doesnt meant we are 'bloody useless'. maths problems most commonly include a specified set of information. normaly you have no need to 'decode' clues like the violin, and the house number if it is a maths problem. had it been a riddle then you would have had to, which is why that is how it was largely interprited. [/QUOTE]As I said before, only the people who got it wrong are complaining and nitpicking. Who cares anyway, some people have already managed to ruin a thread meant for fun/entertainment and degenerate it into a pathetic argument, might as well forget this thread now.

[Night Stalker]

He wrote it perfectly well. Not all 'word problems' in math are esily reduced to x+y=z. And this isn't a logic problem, but a deductive reasoning. It is solved in three steps. First determining all permutations of three numbers whose product is 36 (assumption: all numbers are integers - not a bad one either as it really simplifies things). Then, we know that the sum of those three numbers is equal to some unknown number, but the result of at least two permutations is ambiguous. The final clue has nothing to do with a violin, but that there is a single older child.

Don't get too frustrated though Vask, good deductive reasoning skills are as rare as common sense ... [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Raistlin Majere]

Originally posted by Gabrielles blades: Assumptions, 1 yr old is considered a baby not a young kid, and teenager is too old to be considered a kid. 1x4x9 sum 14 --impossible 1x3x12 sum 16 --impossible 1x2x18 sum 21 --impossible 1x6x6 sum 13 --impossible 3x3x4 sum 10 --possible w/child prodegy 3x2x6 sum 11 --possible So we have a 50/50 chance of getting it right as was mentioned before, any kid can play a violin, and in all of the cases the children will always have a 'oldest' since even in the case of twins one would come seconds before the other. the house number is different for each of the ways, so the teacher should have figured it out at the 2nd clue.

a child prodigy? who says the kid has to be talented?