Three people went to a hotel and rented a room for $30, each paying $10 for his share. Later, the clerk discovered that the price of the room was only $25. She handed the bellman five $1 bills and asked him to return them to the three people. The bellman, not knowing how to divide $5 among three people, instead gave each person $1 and kept the other $2 for himself.
Here's the question:
The three people originally paid $10 each, but each received $1 back,
so they've now paid a total of $27 for the room.
Add to that the $2 that the bellman kept, and you have a total
expenditure of $29 instead of $30. What happened to the other dollar?
Solution:
There is no missing dollar.
This is a classic problem -- it has been around for at least 30 years.
The total expenditure is now only $27, accounted for by
adding the $25 in the hands of the hotel clerk to the $2 in the
hands of the bellman.
In other words, the original $30 now is divided like this:
the hotel clerk has $25, the guests have $3, and the bellman has $2.
The error arose when an asset ($2) was added to an expense ($27)
instead of the other asset ($25),
thereby "mixing apples with oranges."
Correctly solved by:
1. Joshbeen Grewal | College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia |
2. Keith Mealy | Cincinnati, Ohio |
3. David Powell | Winchester, Virginia |
4. George Gaither | Winchester, Virginia |
5. Brice Tarleton | Columbus, Georgia |
6. Richard Johnson | La Jolla, California |
7. Walt Arrison | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
8. Renata Sommerville | Austin, Texas |
9. Nate Troup | Arlington, Virginia |
10. Andrea Flandry | Columbus, Georgia |
11. Kristen Wilson | Columbus, Georgia |
12. Adam Kronfeld | Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania |
13. Christopher March | Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia |
14. Theresa Gipson | Rockford, Michigan |
15. Amy Lamport | Rockford, Michigan |