The unsolvable problem.

 

I am not a jealous person, not in the least, but I often feel a tinge when I see people who seem to get out of bed each day and everything go so simply and easily for them for the rest of the day, never a fret or a worry. I, on the other hand, am constantly striving each day to produce or do something that makes me feel that it has been all worth the thought and the struggle. 

Now life got even more problematic when it came to solving a math problem. Against all the trends of those who had difficulty with reading and writing yet could do math with ease I seemed to be unable to manage either. So I rejoice that I later in life managed to overcome some of those difficulties but the math still escapes me.

So for those of you who enjoy a problem to solve here is one piece of math I have understood.

Long ago, there lived an old man with his three sons in a deserted village, located in the vicinity of a desert. He had 17 camels, and they were the main source of his income. He used to rent out camels as a means of shipping in the desert. 

One day, he died. He had left a will, leaving his assets for his three sons. 

After the funeral and the other obligations were over, the three sons read the will. While their father had divided all the property he had into three equal parts, he had divided the 17 camels in a different way. They were not shared equally, not that would have been easy, among the three.  As ‘17’ is an odd number and a prime number, it cannot be divided or shared equally by three.

The old man had stated that the eldest son will own half of the 17 camels, the middle one will get one-third of the 17 camels, and the youngest one will get his share of camels as one-ninth! 

All of them were stunned to read the will and questioned each other how to divide the 17 camels as mentioned in the will. It is not possible to divide 17 camels and give half of the 17 camels to the eldest one. It is not possible either to divide the camels for the other two sons. 

They spent several days thinking of ways to divide the camels as mentioned in the will, but none could find the answer.

They finally took the issue to the wise man of their village. 

The wise man heard the problem and instantly found a solution. He asked them to bring all the 17 camels.

The sons brought the camels to the wise man’s place. The wise man added a camel owned by himself and made the total number of camels 18.

Now, he asked the first son to read the will. As per the will, the eldest son got half the camels, which now  18, divide this by 2 and you have 9 camels! The eldest one got 9 camels as his share.

The remaining camels were 9.

The wise man asked the second son to read the will. He was assigned 1 / 3 of the total camels.

It again 18 this time divided by 3 equals  6 camels. The second son got 6 camels as his share.

The total number of camels shared by the elder sons being 9 + 6 equalled 15 camels.

The third son read out his share of camels: 1 / 9th of the total number of camels 18 divided by 9 equals 2 camels.

The youngest one got 2 camels as his share.

Together in total, there were 9 + 6 + 2 camels shared by the brothers, which added to  17 camels.

Now, the one camel added by the wise man was taken back.

The wise man solved this problem smartly with his intelligence. 

Intelligence is nothing but finding a common ground to solve an issue. Given time and help and some thought every problem has a solution. 

Have a wonderful problem free day. If you get stuck I know a friend who might be able to help you out.