Monday, June 25, 2007

Logic

This one has been around forever, at least since I was a kid. The internet just makes it easier to  spread around.  … (And it still baffles me.) 


Three men go into a motel. The desk clerk said the room was $30, so each man paid $10 and went to the room. A while later, the desk clerk realized the room was only $25, so he sent the bellboy to the three guys' room with $5. On the way, the bellboy couldn't figure out how to split $5 evenly between three men, so he gave each man $1 and kept the other $2 for himself.


This meant that the 3 men each paid $9 for the room, which is a total of $27. Add to that the $2 the bellboy kept and the total is $29. Where is the other dollar?


Snopes.com has the answer.  After re-reading the answer several times I think it’s starting to sink in….I think.


via

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

For those who still dun get it, This might be easier to understand........
The 3 men paid 3x$9 for the $25 bill and the $2 bellboy tip.

Anonymous said...

the question is misleading, if each man paid $9 the total is $27, add the $1 dollar the bellboy gave back to each man (x3=$3) and you have $30!!

you are mislead to calcualte the $2 tip as the missing money, when its really the $1 each man has in his pocket thats the missing money.

Anonymous said...

snopes' explanation is useless.

The 'trick' is when they mention the number 29. This number has no relevance (except to confuse you).

Add the bill for the room ($25) to the $2 the bellboy kept and you get $27, which is what the men paid out.

Unknown said...

Okay, lets look at correctly now. The men were charged $30, the room was $25. So the men paid $8.33 each; basicly 8 and 1/3 to make $25. They each got one dollar back from the $5, that brings it to 28, the bell boy kept $2. The price of 9 dollars even per person is wrong.

Have a good day gentlemen.