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What was the solution and how was the group of horses divided?

+1 vote
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An old farmer had 3 sons and 17 horses.

When he died his will was read in the village meeting.

According to the will, the oldest son was to get half of the horses, the middle was to get one third of the horses and the youngest son was to get one ninth of the horses.

None of the villagers were able to divide the horses as the result was coming in fractions.

The sons started fighting on how to divide the horses and did not reach any agreement.

A traveling mathematician rode a horse to the village meeting at this point.

He heard the problem at hand and proposed a solution with which all the sons got their share in the property without harming any animal.

What was the solution and how was the group of horses divided?

posted Mar 13, 2018 by Udita

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1 Answer

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He takes the LCM of 2, 3 & 9 and finds it to be 18. This means there has to be 18 horses to start dividing the horses between the sons. So he gives his horse to the total temporarily, which he soon intends to get back.
Now (1/2)*18 = 9 horses for eldest son
(1/3)*18 = 6 horses for the middle guy
(1/9)*18 = 2 horses for the youngest. [ 9 + 6 + 2 ] = 17.
And the mathematician gets his horse back.

answer Mar 13, 2018 by Tejas Naik



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