Who can solve this problem?

[Melusine]

Do you now?
Well I'm highly insulted you'd judge my intelligence as lowly as that!
Just for that, I'm not even going to PM you my steenkin correct answer as I was about to do..... [img]graemlins/angelwings.gif[/img]

[Vaskez]

Bah that trick's so old it didn't even make it into the book to be the oldest in the book [img]tongue.gif[/img]
Besides, if I really wanted to be popular I wouldn't put on my grouchy act. Besides that, who wants to be popular with a bunch of people he's never gonna meet anyway

[ 09-07-2003, 06:56 PM: Message edited by: Vaskez ]

[Melusine]

You know that's a lie, your grouchy act is your way of making chicks adore you! In fact, is that Cloudy I hear rushing in to cuddle aaaalll your grouchiness away?! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Alright alright! So I'm too tired and disinterested to solve the problem. Or maybe I'm just stupid. I'll go off to sulk then.

[Vaskez]

Originally posted by Melusine: You know that's a lie, your grouchy act is your way of making chicks adore you! In fact, is that Cloudy I hear rushing in to cuddle aaaalll your grouchiness away?! [img]tongue.gif[/img] Alright alright! So I'm too tired and disinterested to solve the problem. Or maybe I'm just stupid. I'll go off to sulk then.

Hmmm I'm intrigued. Could you make a list of all the chicks that "adore me"? I think it's gonna be a short/non-existant list....might have to change tactics

Ah it's ok Mel, I'll come and comfort you when I'm in Amsterdam and then I'll explain the solution

[Gabrielles blades]

hrm i evidently missed a permutation in my first try
2x2x9 sum 13

Now, i can only assume since my logic was refuted in PM that playing the violin has some other meaning
and the only meaning i can think of is perhaps that 9 and 6 are the same number just one upside down in relation to the other so could be said to be playing the violin i suppose, not that that makes any sense at all.

However,
violin has 6 letters in it, and upside down that 6 is a 9
so i suppose....
it could mean that the answer is either 2x2x9 or 1x4x9 since both have upside down 6's

[Vaskez]

LOL Gabrielles, guessing doesn't count. In logic questions there is always one answer that you can come to and be SURE it's the right answer because logic rules out all the others. Well I'm at work right now but I'll post my worked solution when I get home (in about 5 hours).

[Vaskez]

OK here's how I solved it:

First you should write out the possible ages that give a product of 36.
To do this, find all the numbers that divide 36:
36, 18, 12, 9, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1

now write out the possible combinations of ages of the kids:

1,1,36 sum = 38
1,2,18 sum = 21
1,3,12 sum = 16
1,4,9 sum = 14
1,6,6 sum = 13
2,2,9 sum = 13
2,3,6 sum = 11
3,3,4 sum = 10


The second clue says that even though the maths teacher knew the house number he could not work out their age knowing that the sum of their ages is the house number. This means that the number must be ambiguous i.e. at least 2 possible age combinations add up to the house number.
The only possible combinations that do not give a unique total are 1,6,6 and 2,2,9 so the answer must be one of those. The 3rd clue says that the oldest one plays the violin - not plural so there must only be one oldest one i.e. it cannot be 1,6,6 so their ages MUST be 2,2,9. No other answer can be correct.

[Gabrielles blades]

there is an oldest 'one' in the case of 1 6 6
in cases of twins people seem to note which one came out a few seconds before, and so say hes/shes the older one.

[Night Stalker]

Originally posted by Gabrielles blades: there is an oldest 'one' in the case of 1 6 6 in cases of twins people seem to note which one came out a few seconds before, and so say hes/shes the older one.

But this time is insignificant when taking the unit of measure (whole years) and level of persision (0 decimal places) in considderation. Jeesh, like Vask said, way to be too nit-picky ...

[Vaskez]

Thanks NS. Gabrielle, Shaddap!