Two brothers share a flock of x sheep. They take the sheep to the market and sell each sheep for $x. At the end of the day they put the money from the sales on the table to divide it equally. All money is in $10 bills, except for fewer than ten excess $1 bills. One at a time they take out $10 bills. The brother who draws first also draws last.

The second brother complains about getting one less $10 bill so the first brother offers him all the $1 bills. The second brother still received a total less than the first brother so he asks the first brother to write him a check to balance the things out.

How much was the check?

We know that the total value of the sales is $x^2 and that there are an odd number of $10 notes.

Whenever the 10s value of a square number is odd, the units value is always 6. Which means that the first brother must write a cheque for $2 to even things up.

Posted by fwaff on 2003-10-06 09:28:24