My friend Charles works in a post office and he sells stamps. One day a man walked in and slamming seventy five rupees on the counter requested,

"Please give me some 2 rupees stamps, six times as many one rupee stamps, and for the rest of the amount make up some 5 rupee stamps."

Charles thought for a few moments and finally she handed over the exact fulfilment of the order to the man.

How did he do it and how many stamps of each type did he give to the man ?

(In reply to postage by Nick Murray)

Yes, Nick, I agree also. One point that should be made as to this solution's uniqueness is that the request included "some 2 rupee stamps", and logically speaking "some" means at least one. Otherwise someone could say that the request could be satisfied by 15 5-rupee stamps with none of the other two denoms.

Posted by Charlie on 2003-03-06 03:54:22