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        riddles >> hard >> Dad's Riddle
        
(Message started by: Sarah Lestat on Jan 26^th, 2003, 2:10pm)

Title: Dad's Riddle
Post by Sarah Lestat on Jan 26^th, 2003, 2:10pm

Five of each of these six equals nine hundred and fifty five

Title: Re: Dad's Riddle
Post by John Circe on Jan 26^th, 2003, 5:15pm

??? Does anybody know the answer???

Title: Re: Dad's Riddle
Post by redPEPPER on Jan 27^th, 2003, 2:18am

if five of each of these six equals 955, then one of each of these six is 191. Now we might have to find 6 numbers whose sum is 191 but there's a lot of possibilities. They might be special numbers but the riddle doesn't give a clue about how they would be special.

The average of these 6 numbers would be 31.8333...
I tried 6 consecutive prime numbers but that didn't work. I tried powers of 2 but 191 is the sum of 7 of them.

Without that constraint of "special numbers" that I added myself so that the riddle makes sense, here are some sets of solutions:
{1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 186}
{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 176}
{1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 160}
{20, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41}
For each of these sets it can be said that "Five of each of these six equals nine hundred and fifty five".

Title: Re: Dad's Riddle
Post by Phil on Jan 28^th, 2003, 1:59pm

Was Dad teaching you a "valuable" lesson?

Title: Re: Dad's Riddle
Post by Sarah Lestat on Jan 28^th, 2003, 5:28pm

I called my dad, he says the math approach from Red Pepper was not what he is looking for. I thought it might be only a thing that family could understand like ages of select family members, five of each...= nine hundred and fifty five. He says no to this as well and that everyone young or old could get this riddle.

I was raised on Kit Williams riddle/treasure hunt books and a.m. radio treasure hunts but as much as I love a riddle or a hunt I am never the one to figure out the answer. To bad for me :'(
Please keep posting your ideas! P.S. Is there such thing as a dumb or silly riddle?? If so is this one of them?? (Sorry Dad)

Title: Re: Dad's Riddle
Post by Phil on Jan 28^th, 2003, 5:57pm

Sorry, I didn't realize you don't know the answer. Your Dad's teaching you values, to coin a phrase. Answer: The six things are a penny, nickel, dime, quarter, half dollar and dollar.

Title: Re: Dad's Riddle
Post by Icarus on Jan 28^th, 2003, 6:11pm

Yes, there are dumb and silly riddles, plenty of them - but I would say that the jury is still out on this one.

It definitely lacks in that the mathematical solutions of redPEPPER satisfy the riddle as stated just fine, even though they are not the desired answer. So the riddle needs to be better stated. But this in itself does not make it dumb or silly.

Of course, I can't make any final judgments on the riddle's worth without knowing the answer, and so far I have no clue! :(

Title: Re: Dad's Riddle
Post by redPEPPER on Jan 29^th, 2003, 3:14am

Phil is most probably right. That is a notable set that fits the riddle, so I'm sure it's the intended answer.

But I agree with myself ;D and Icarus: in order to refute an answer, you have to say what part of the riddle it contradicts. And even though my sets had nothing notable, the riddle didn't specifically ask for a notable set. Maybe a hint in the riddle would help, like the proposed "here's a lesson about values" or something.

My math approach wasn't so wrong after all. I just didn't stumble on the correct set. Might be the culture gap (my Eurocent coins come in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 cents)

Title: Re: Dad's Riddle
Post by Sarah Lestat on Jan 29^th, 2003, 10:52am

8) Oh, I get it!!!! tada!!! Money! penny, nickle, dime, quarter, fifty cent piece, dollar x 5=955! Thanks everyone! I will call Dad and tell him I am a big hero and figured it out all on my own!! Just kidding ;)

Title: Re: Dad's Riddle
Post by Icarus on Jan 29^th, 2003, 8:25pm

That's what I get for getting up for while in the middle of preparing a post! Too big a hole for someone to slip in and provide the answer before I admit I don't know it! Good work, Phil!

And having the answer, I would say that it is not "dumb or silly", though it could be better stated, so as to avoid redPEPPER's alternate answers.

"Five of each of these six items equals nine hundred and fifty five" would even do, since "items" is usually applied only to physical things.

Title: Re: Dad's Riddle
Post by Sarah Lestat on Jan 30^th, 2003, 4:32pm

:o HEY!!! Nobody told me that if I click on Phil's "ANSWER :" that it would tell me. I was just browsing over the page and I thought again how odd it was that Phil had not finished his sentence so I just started clickin on it and there it was.

Title: Re: Dad's Riddle
Post by Sarah Lestat on Jan 30^th, 2003, 4:43pm

Hey maybe my Dad will send me a prize! :P

Title: Re: Dad's Riddle
Post by william wu on Jan 31^st, 2003, 5:41am

Haha :) Yeah, the convention in this forum is to hide our answers. This hidden text can be revealed by highlighting the blank area with your mouse. You can hide text by surrounding it with hide tags, as shown below:

Code:

[hide] hidden stuff [/hide]