Math Riddles

 

Question: A man taking the census walks up to the apartment of a mathematician and asks him if he has any children and how old they are. The mathematician says "I have three daughters and the product of their ages is 72." The man tells the mathematician that he needs more information, so the mathematician tells him "The sum of their ages is equal to our apartment number." The man still needs more information so the mathematician tells him "My oldest daughter has her own bed and the other two share bunk beds."

How old are his daughters?


Question: Three guests check into a hotel room. The clerk says the bill is $30, so each guest pays $10. Later the clerk realizes the bill should only be $25. To rectify this, he gives the bellhop $5 to return to the guests. On the way to the room, the bellhop realizes that he cannot divide the money equally. As the guests didn't know the total of the revised bill, the bellhop decides to just give each guest $1 and keep $2 for himself. Each guest got $1 back: so now each guest only paid $9; bringing the total paid to $27. The bellhop has $2. And $27 + $2 = $29 so, if the guests originally handed over $30, what happened to the remaining $1?

Question: If you have 30 white socks, 22 black socks, and 14 blue socks scattered across the floor in the dark, how many would you have to grab to get a matching pair?

Question: Tom wants to send Sally an expensive ring through the mail because they live thousands of miles apart. The only problem is that everything sent through the mail is stolen unless there is a lock put on it. Both Tom and Sally have plenty of locks and keys but they don't have any of the same locks or keys.

How can Tom send Sally the ring without it getting stolen?

Question: It takes ten men ten hours to build a certain wall. How long does it take five men to build the same wall?