Stupid Problems

[Kaiden]

So they have these problems at work that they put out in the lunch room. If you hand in the right answers you can win a $10 gift card to different places. Anyway this past week they had some problems that just didn't seem right to me. When I questioned them on the problems they just said that they were riddles and I wasn't reading them the correct way. So this is my vent post to see if I am crazy or what.

Situation:
Three men decided to split the cost of a hotel room. They paid the price of $30, each guy gave the manager $10. However the manager realized that it was a wednesday night, which meant the hotel had a special. Rooms were only $25, he had overcharged them $5! He called the bellboy, game him $5 dollars and told him to return it to the men. When the bellboy explained the situation to the men, they were so pleased at the honesty of the establishment they promptly tipped the bellboy $2 and each took $1 for themselves.

Problem: Each of the three men ended up paying $9(their original $10 minus $1) totaling $27, plus the $2 for the bellboy which makes $29 where did the extra dollar go?


A certain number has three digits. The sum of the three digits equals 36 time this number. Seven time the left digit plus 9 is equal to 5 time the sum of the two other digits. 8 time the second digit minus 9 is equal to the sum of the first and third. What is the number?

Ill give the answers they gave me Friday! For those that want them. Though I am sure these problems are on the internet or something.

[Victoria]

They gave the answer to their own problem in the situation. I think it's a trick question.

Logically, all the dollars are where they should be; so I think they're just fooling you with the "problem".

30 > Hotel
5 > 3 Dudes
2 > Bellboy
1 x 3 > 3 Dudes

...That's where all the money went. The wording of the problem throws you off because it makes you believe a dollar is missing when it isn't.

They didn't "pay 9" at all. I mean, they didn't have to give the bellboy a tip. But then again, you can't really split 5$ three ways, can you? You can, but it's like... 1.666666666667.

Edit: Dodie is too slow. XD

[Dodie16]

Yeah, the first puzzle is one that's pretty old and has been discussed a lot around the internet. Can't say I've heard of the second one though. I'm not all that great with numbers, so I can't even begin to tell you what the answer might be, but here's the answer to the first one:

The dollar was never missing in the first place. People get confused by the faulty reasoning that the riddle provides. The clerk has twenty-five dollars, the busboy has two, and each of the men have one. 25 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 30

[Victoria]

The second one is pretty easy, just kind of tedious.

You just run through 36 x 3, 36x4, etc, etc, until you run across the right combination that fits the other equations.

And if you haven't figured it out by now...

36 x 9 = 324

7 x 3 + 9 = 5 x 2 + 4
(7 x 3) + 9 = 5 x (2+4)
21 + 9 = 5 x 6

8 x 2 - 9 = 3 + 4
16 - 9 = 7

3 + 2 + 4 = 9

[RagnaToad]

The first one is just lame. The only thing that makes it a riddle is the question in the end, which doesn't make any sense.

It just adds up some random numbers that were mentioned in previous calculations in the story. And because it is close to the number 30, it makes you think there's a dollar missing, even though the calculation doesn't make any sense.

[Rocky]

Since it's homework time in the GC forums, I was wondering if someone could help me in my Calculus today, I came across a problem that I didn't know the answer to..

"Consider a compact 3-dimensional manifold V without boundary. Is it possible that the fundamental group of V could be trivial, even though V is not homeomorphic to the 3-dimensional sphere?"

Could someone give me some help please?