[Wandiwa]

17 Horses problem​

Problem:
A farmer wants to divide his 17 horses among his three sons. According to farmer the oldest son should get half of the horses, the middle son should get one third of the horses and the youngest son should get one ninth of the horses.
When their father died, they were not able to divide the horses as the result was coming in fractions. As the sons were fighting on how to divide the horses a traveling mathematician came and heard their problem. He proposed a solution with which all the sons got their share in the property without harming any animal.
What was the advice given and how the group of horses were divided?



Answer: is in the next post.

 

[Wandiwa]

Spoiler

Solution:

Well, this puzzle is interesting. you have to think such that with the solution everybody is happy and nobody will suffer a loss.

Let’s see the problem first.
we have 17 horses to be divided among three sons with the ratio as given.

1st son — half of the horses (17/2) =8.5
2nd son — one third of horses (17/3) =5.66
3rd son — one ninth of horses (17/9) =1.88

Now all the results are in fraction so the horses cannot be distributed like this. What will the traveling mathematician do to solve it.

It’s simple. He will add his horse to the group of horses. So in total we have 18 horses now. Now let’s see the scenario again.

1st son — half of the horses (18/2) =9
2nd son — one third of horses (18/3) =6
3rd son — one ninth of horses (18/9) =2

So in total 17 horses will get distributed among the three sons and the traveling mathematician will take his horse and leave.