I entered a store and spent one-half of the money that was in my wallet. When I came out I found that I had just as many paise as I had rupees and half as many rupees as I had paise when I went in.

How much money did I have with me when I entered the store ?

( Given: 1 Rupee = 100 Paise ).

(In reply to by TomM)

My first answer was based on the common way of talking about money $99.98 is "ninety-nine dollars and ninety-eight cents" (or similarly in rupees and paise) no matter what the distribution of coins and bills(notes).

But what if Ravi was more literal? I often have more than $1.00 in coin on me. If the question was not based on the normal representation of the total amount, but on the actual ratio of coinage to notes, then there are many answers becuase R and P are no longer limited to the range 0≤100.

Other possible amounts are 199.96, 299.94, 399.92, 499.90, etc, provided that the coins and notes are properly distributed. (199.96 = 198 in notes and 1.96 in coin; 299.94 = 297 in notes and 2.94 in coin)

Notice that all of these new figures are whole multiples of the figures in my earlier answer.

Posted by TomM on 2003-03-16 15:02:35