Three poor farmers visit the big city for the first time. In the town, they visit a cheap hotel. The hotel owner is farmer-friendly: he has a room for 3 persons which costs only 30 dollars.

So, the farmers agree to pay $10 each. They pay and go to their room.

But then, the hotel owner realises that he has forgotten his super discount. The farmers only had to pay $25. So, he calls the bell-boy and tells him to give the farmers their $5 back.

But the bell-boy thinks: "You can't split 5 by 3 well. If I give them their $5, they'll probably have a fight." So he keeps $2 for himself and gives the other $3 to the farmers.

Now, the farmers each paid $9, that's $27 in total, and the bell boy kept $2. But together, that's $29!

What happened to the missing dollar?

Its simple math you have 30 dollars right then you give back 3 thus 30 - 3 but you want to get back to 30 you cant add 27 + 2. The problem is worded in such a way that you dont realize how it screwed up simple math. The last line makes sense if you want to get the math to get down to 25 but not to get back up to 30.

Posted by Kire on 2002-05-07 03:19:56