Отправлено: 20.09.12 17:01. Заголовок: mindboggling maths

Can you solve all these puzzles? (or just some of them...) I'm waiting for your answers till Monday!


1. How many times can you subtract the number 10 from the number 50?

2. Mr and Mrs Jones have five children. Half of them are girls. How is that possible?

3. How many letters are there in the Egyptian alphabet? (Clue: The Egyptian alphabet has the same number of letters as the Algerian alphabet, but one less than the Mongolian alphabet.)

4. Jack planted his apple trees in straight lines with 10 metres between the trees. What was the distance between the two end trees in the row containing 20 trees?

5. If you had two cans in front of one can and two cans behind one can and one can in the middle, what is the smallest number of cans you could have?

6. Mr and Mrs Smith had nine sons and each son had a sister. How many children did the Smiths have?

 Отправлено: 20.09.12 22:40. Заголовок: :sm17: ooops, I'..

ooops, I'll try..
1. Once. Because after that, the fifty becomes forty eight.
2. I won't give the answer (we've discussed it in our staff room )))
3. Maybe the matter is that there's no Egyptian alphabet as it's conventionally defined...
4. 19 meters
5. Hmmm... Five??
6. 10 children (9 sons and 1 daughter))

 Отправлено: 21.09.12 12:06. Заголовок: 1. Agree with "o..

1. Agree with "once", but why forty eight?
2. Maybe Mr Jones has five children and Mrs Jones has another five?
3. There are 19 letters in "the Egyptian alphabet"
4. 190 meters
5. Three, I think

 Отправлено: 23.09.12 10:37. Заголовок: 1. Yeeeees))) I was ..

1. Yeeeees))) I was inattentive) I know the same riddle with number 2)
4. 190, not 19, beg your pardon)

 Отправлено: 24.09.12 14:41. Заголовок: Hello Miss Frost and..

Hello Miss Frost and nuxma,

Thank you for your answers! I especially enjoyed the part where the fifty miraculously becomes forty-eight after you subtract the number 10 from it I wish it was true about the money in my pocket)))

And yes, together you've given the right answers to all the questions, except for the 2nd one (Miss Frost kindly decided to keep it a secret).
Miss Frost, try to be more attentive next time, it's difficult to calculate your result as there are two sets of answers))
nuxma, you've got four right answers out of six and I think it could be five, but the 6th answer is missing.

To sum it up, here are the answers:

1. Once (after that you're subtracting 10 from a different number)

2. All of them are girls.

3. 'The Egyptian alphabet' contains 19 letters. 'The Mongolian alphabet' contains 20 letters.

4. 190 metres (there were 19 spaces between trees)

5. Three

8. Ten