The coins currently in circulation in Britain are for 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, 100p and 200p. When I gave one of each of these coins to Tom and Harry to share between them, each took two or more coins, with each person's coins' total value equal to a prime number of pence. No coins were left over.

I asked Harry whether his share was a specific number of coins that I mentioned. He said "no".

I then asked Harry whether he had the coin of a denomination I specified. He said "yes".

His two answers allowed me to determine the total of the value that Harry had taken. What was that value?

Hell all,

  New here, and trying to test my brain a bit. I worked out the coin combinations that were possible for Harry to have, but I am not sure how you figured out what questions were asked.

For the first question: I asked Harry whether his share was a specific number of coins that I mentioned. He said "no". How does everyone know the number asked was five? The number could have been 3, 4, or 5 yes?

Also, for the second question, how do you know he asked whether Harry had the 10p? Why not the 5 or the 20?

Just wondering if I am missing something here. Were we supposed to know the questions already?

Posted by monica on 2005-09-21 04:04:11