Divide camels
Written on 9:58 am by Vja Students
In his Last Will and Testament the Sheik says that anything not specifically bequeathed to a member of his family shall go to the Great Mosque. In the clause concerning his camels he makes the following provisions: "My eldest son will get half my camels, my middle son will get one-third, and my youngest son one-ninth."
Since there are seventeen camels, the sons do not know how to divide them without cutting one of the camels into pieces. While they are discussing the difficulty, a wise man (the very same sage from Puzzle #1) appears on a camel. The sons ask him what they should do. "Quite simple," he says. "Let us add my camel to yours. There are then eighteen camels, so the eldest of you will get nine, the second will get six, and the youngest two, which makes a total of seventeen, precisely the number that the Sheik left you." The sons divide the seventeen camels accordingly, and the wise man rides off on his own camel. Is this arrangement satisfactory from everyone's point of view? If not, why not?
Solution::
No. Though each of the sons gets more than was specified by their father's Will, and though the camels happily escape mutilation, the Will itself has been violated, because it provided that 17/18 of a camel (i.e. 17 minus 17/2 minus 17/3 minus 17/9) was to remain after the divison between the sons. The Great Mosque (the residuary legatee) and anyone who believed that the term of the Sheik's Will should be strictly observed would be dissatisfied with the wise man's arrangement.
The Great Mosque will surely turn out to be the loser in this division, so unsatisfactory for them. They were going to get eight camels, they got none.