3 brothers received 17 live cattles from their father.
The will is as follow:
Youngest will get 1/2.
Second will get 1/3.
Oldest will get 1/9.
How can you help to devide them when there is no cattle allowed to be cut into pieces?

Can anyone here please help them?
You want me to tell you how?

youngest: 9
second: 6
oldest: 2

__________________
Bill
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1/2 of 17 is 8.5
1/3 of 17 is 5.7
1/9 of 17 is 1.9
Remember! No cattle is allowed to cut into pieces.

How about I donate 1 more cattle to make them become 18 cattles, even number must be easier to be divided.
Now try. Each brother get how many cattles according to their father' will?

No fun, when thread get no responds.

When you add 1 to make 18, Bill is correct.
9, 6 and 2. which happens to equal 17

3 brothers received 17 live cattles from their father.
The will is as follow:
Youngest will get 1/2.
Second will get 1/3.
Oldest will get 1/9.


Quote:
Originally Posted by bill2006
youngest: 9
second: 6
oldest: 2

1/2 of 17 is 8.5
1/3 of 17 is 5.7
1/9 of 17 is 1.9
Remember! No cattle is allowed to cut into pieces.

It can't be 9, 6 and 2 when there are only 17, unless there are 18 cattles.
But when 18 are divided, it goes back to 17.

This is a classic puzzle, and in one of it's iterations, goes like this:
An old farmer died and left 17 cows to his three sons.
In his will, the farmer stated that his oldest son should get 1/2, his middle son should get 1/3, and his youngest son should get 1/9 of all the cows. The sons, who did not want to end up with half cows, sat for days trying to figure out how many cows each of them should get.

One day, their neighbour came by to see how they were doing after their father's death. The three sons told him their problem. After thinking for a while, the neighbour said: "I'll be right back!"

He went away, and when he came back, the three sons could divide the cows according to their father's will, and in such a way that each of them got a whole number of cows.

And here is the classic solution:

The neighbour borrowed an extra cow, to make the total number of cows 18.
Then the oldest son got 1/2 of 18 is 9 cows
the middle son got 1/3 of 18 is 6 cows,
the youngest son got 1/9 of 18 is 2 cows.

Since 9+6+2 = 17, the cows could be divided among the three brothers in such a way that the borrowed cow was left over, and could be returned to its owner

There it is!

__________________
Liz
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It's very clever.