Monday, April 26, 2010

The Riddle Unsolved

The human mind is undoubtedly a restive creation of God, never satisfied with reasoning and logic.

For years and years, the search for the unknown has been haunting us and still continues to do so because every new invention unfolds a new mystery!

Despite this, the human mind and the human beings believe that mathematics is one science that is perfect – pure calculation, which cannot be wrong if the premise and consideration is correct and probably this is why it is said that two plus two can be equal to five in fiction but not in mathematics.

And believe me, so far I had no doubt about the truthfulness of this notion but the following fact came before me failing all my logic and reasoning and forcing me to rethink whether mathematics is different from fiction? Is it really a logical and correct calculation based on formulas?

A simple puzzle has shaken my faith in the correctness of mathematics, which is said to be the science of pure and simple calculations. Here is the story carrying the puzzle.

A landlord rents out one room to three persons at a rent of Rs.30/- i.e. Rs.10/- per month for each of them. When the money is actually paid to the landlord, he feels that the boys deserve a discount. He returns five rupees to them through the messenger. The messenger bamboozled at how to distribute five rupees equally among three persons decided to keep two rupees with him and returns one rupee to each of them.

In actuality each tenant having received the discount, paid Rs.9/- only as rent bringing the total amount to Rs.9x3=27. The messenger had bungled Rs.2/-, which when added to 27 makes the sum total as Rs.29/-. Where went the 30th rupee?

The proposition is as simple as that but the missing one rupee is absolutely untraceable. Could any wise man help solve?

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