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The Aging Brothers (Posted on 2003-08-14) Difficulty: 1 of 5
The product of 3 brothers' ages is 567. Two are twins.

How old is the other one?

See The Solution Submitted by Jayaram S    
Rating: 3.2000 (10 votes)

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Solution Comment 18 of 18 |
The factors of 567 are 34 and 7.
The possible age combinations are then:
(1, 1, 567), 
(1, 3, 189),
(1, 9, 63),
(1, 21, 27), 
(3, 3, 63),
(3, 7, 27),
(3, 9, 21), and
(7, 9, 9).

As we are given that two of the brothers are twins, the possible ages are limited to (1, 1, 567), (3, 3, 63) and (7, 9, 9). As no human of the current generation has lived over 130 years, it is impossible for the solution to be (1, 1, 567). Though possible, it is extremely unlikely one brother is sixty years older than his siblings. Therefore, the most probable ages of the brothers are (7, 9, 9). Thus, the brother in question would be 7 years old.

Edited on July 4, 2010, 2:14 pm
  Posted by Dej Mar on 2010-07-04 14:05:36

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