The Rhetorical Question
"If it takes 1 & 1/2 men, 1 & 1/2 days," says Punnish strutting about in imitation of his master, "to pot 1 & 1/2 geraniums in 1 & 1/2 pots, how many will 2 & 1/2 men pot in 6 days?"
He is rather shocked to hear Pembish answering this rhetorical question from with in the greenhouse.
What, incidentally, is the answer ?
He is rather shocked to hear Pembish answering this rhetorical question from with in the greenhouse.
What, incidentally, is the answer ?
Labels: friday special, logic, mathemagic
posted by Rajesh Lal at
2:27 PM
19 Comments:
kinda a shot in the dark but 9?
10 geraniums
how can you have half a man?
1.5 men, 1.5 days to pot 1.5 geraniums (forget the rest)
(reduces to)
1 man, 1.5 days to pot 1 geranium
(6 days/1.5 days = factor of 4 so multiply by 4 to get to 6 days)
1 man, 6 days to pot 4 geraniums
(multiply by 2.5 men gives)
2.5 men, 6 days to pot 10 geraniumns
so the answer is 10
the answer is 15.-christopher
Ya. how can u, have 1/2 a man? plus it is 15 geraniumns.
It's Impossible to have2&1/2 men
euclicid.....to pot 1 & 1/2 geraniums in 1 & 1/2 pots also cancelss out
Last Anon.. No it doesn't.
if you change the workforce, the production output changes respectivly while the amount of effort in time stays the same..
Say 1 man plants 1 flower in 1 day.
Then 2 man plants 2 fowers in 1 day (not 2 days).. same thing, just easier to follow..
I stand by the answer of 10.
It's a rhetorical question, so it doesn't matter that you can't have half a man. I agree with Euclid's Brother that it's 10.
They will pot 6 plants. i thought of it like this:
it doesn't really matter how many guys you have because it doesn't effect the answer of the question. all you need to know is that it takes 2.5 days to plant 2.5 plants, which by simple division reveals that for every day, one plant is planted. So 6 days time 1 plant per day gives you 6.
Wait maybe....
It takes 1.5 men 1.5 days to plant 1.5 plants
So it takes 1.5 men 1 day to plant 1 plant
So it takes 1 man 1 day to plant .5 plant
So then it takes 2 men .5 day to plant 1 plant
So then maybe it takes 2 men 1 day to plant 2 plants
So then they plant 12 plants?
This question is annoying. Rhetorical questions aren't supposed to be answered anyway so whats the point of this??
Say that in this case that the unit .5 = 1. So essentially,
3 men take 3 days to plant 3 plants.
How many plants would be produced by 5 men planting for 12 days?
If it takes 3 men 1 day to plant 1 plant, then at least 12 plants would be planted in one day. The remaining two would plant 2/3 plants every day. This means 8 plants. (2/3 x 12)
Twenty plants would be planted, but remember that earlier I converted .5 units to the unit of 1, so you have to divide 20 by 2, so...
10 plants would be planted...
Shoot, I had hoped for a new answer, but at least this method works for me. Hope it makes sense to all of you!
Michaela.. in your last answer on the 3rd line, you reduced the work force by 1/3 but reduced production by 1/2.
Nice explination from Out of the Shadows. That makes it much easier to follow.
Simply put, the number of plants, pots, people, and days are all equal in this scenario. So 1day per plant per man per pot. Pots are irrelevant to the question, so after 6 days, one man pots 6 plants. Multiply that answer by 2.5 due to the added labor, and your answer is 15 pots-obviously. This is assuming that half people and half-geraniums are real. Otherwise- I only have half a brain for thinking I could answer...
it is 3 pots
A child playing on the beach had 6-1/6 sand piles in one place and 3-1/3 in another. If he put them together, how many sand piles would he have?
Answer is one of the positive roots of x^2-2x+1=0
To answer the question above, by Anonymous - the child will have just 1 pile of sand ... putting all sand from 6-1/6 and 3-1/3 piles TOGETHER gives you either a single pile of sand or ... depending how you spread it ... levels with the ground and you have 0 ;)
The trick could have been also that each set of piles or even their individual sizes are totally different ... nowhere it defines the size of piles...
If it takes 1 & 1/2 men, 1 & 1/2 days,to pot 1 & 1/2 geraniums in 1 & 1/2 pots.
how many will 2 & 1/2 men pot in 6 days?
lets see
so it takes 2 &1/2 men, 6 days,to pot 5 geraniums in 5 pots
i think
my mind just exploaded
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