One Sunday, Alin (the greatest puzzle solver of all times) and his friend Motti decided to go for a ride in the countryside. One rode a bicycle and the other a motorcycle. Sometime into their trip, a storm started and both had to call Motti's grandma to come to the rescue. When grandma came to pick up Motti, she noted that if he had ridden three times as far as he had, he would be two times as far to the start as he is to the finish. When she picked up Alin, she noted that if he had ridden half as far as he had, he would have three times as far to ride as he had.
Who rode the motorcycle?
Submit your answer on our Family Puzzle Marathon site. Solve three puzzles and get a prize!
See TheMathMom presentation:
Popular Puzzles
-
This is an easy puzzle that you all are welcome to share with your kids and friends: Put addition signs between the digits 88888888 to get ...
-
This puzzle arrived via email from one of the fans. Can you move just one match to make this statement correct? There is more than one sol... -
Here is a number magic trick that came to me via mail. All of you, math detectives, are invited to unveil its magic with your logic. Tak... -
This came in a magic trick box that our daughter picked for her birthday. Exhausted from all the Bar Mitzvah preparations for her older b... -
This came from my son who got it from someone else at school. I solved it quickly and texted him the answer just as I was getting into ... -
Magic squares are tables of numbers where sums of every row, every column and both diagonals produce the same number. No, they were not in... -
My daughter's school teacher is showing kids some number mysticism. She told them to take any 3 digit number, e.g.793. Scramble its digi... -
We are done with the winter Olympics and now are looking forward to the Oscar's entertainment. As we saw in the previous puzzle , t... -
I found this puzzle in a tiny but mighty pocket puzzle book named Optical Illusions. Suppose the yellow billiard ball strikes the bumper a... -
You have 42 parrots and 7 cages of various sizes. Lock all the parrots inside the cages so that no cage is empty and each cage contains an ...
6 comments:
I
You may be right, but you have to prove it.
Motti may claim the same....
Drawing or equation, whatever works.
You can email me the drawing and I will post it within the puzzle.
if this is a tricky question then the answer is 'No one rode the motorcycle' ... because of the 'one rode a bike and ANOTHER (instead of "the other") rode the motorcycle.
If this is a math question than ... you might want to rephraze 'twice further away from the start than to the finish' ... feels like it's missing somthing :-)
Math is a precise science, so thanks for pointing out the language imprecisions. English is not my first or even second language and I am therefore not able to feel these misstatements that otherwise scream into a native's ear. I will try to rephrase these few sentences as you suggested.
The answer is still for grabs.
Who can beat Alin in providing a solution?
Assuming the length from start to finish is the same for the two, that distance is D
m = distance Motti traveled
3 m = (2/3) D
a = distance Alin traveled
(1/2) a = (1/4) D
in Motti's case,
D = (9/2) m
in Alin's case
D = (4/2) a = 2 a
(9/2) m = 2 a
m = (4/9) a
Alin traveled farther, so he's probably the one who rode the motorcycle.
Yes!
Rachel T rules and gets above the 10 puzzle mark.
There is actually another graphical solution to this puzzle that may be simpler.
Draw two intervals of the same length - this is Alin and Motti's planned trip length.
Divide one interval into 4 equal parts. Alin has been picked up when he was right in the middle of his trip. (check - if he had ridden half as far as he had, he would have three times as far to ride as he had)
Divide another interval into 9 equal parts. Motti was picked when he finished 2 out of these 9 steps. (check - if he had ridden three times as far as he had, he would be two times as far to the start as he is to the finish)
As 2/9 of the interval is less than 1/2, Motti is behind Alin. So, Alin is using the faster vehicle - a motorcycle.
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.