quote:

Originally posted by Sarcoman Two postmen meet on their routes and they start talking. Postman A says: "I know you have 3 sons, how old are they?" Postman B says: "If you take their ages in years, and multiply them together, the result is your age." A: "That`s not enough info" B: "The sum of the 3 numbers equals the number of windows in that building over there." A: "Hmm... that`s still not enough." B: "My middle son is red-haired." A: "Ah, now I see!" How old are the 3 sons? Same deal as before, I will post the answer in 1 week if nobody gets it.

oh well this one is so obvious
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okay maybe it's not.

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wtf .......too much brain power

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WTF are you kidding me????

I gotta see the answer to this one.

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Livet er en lang lort....
Jeg tager bare større bider end andre.

mate of mine worked it out!!

I really am the smartest man alive

Right if you play with the numbers the kids can either be

1,5,8 or
2,2,10

Now that got me for a while until i realised that it can't be 2,2,10 cause red hair is a dominant gene so for there to be a red headed child as the middle child means that there cannot be twins which means all numbers must be different hence the answer is 1,5,8.

How can you know if you don't know the age mailman A or the number of windows in the building?

he says

ok the 3 ages must multiply to make his age both sets must be the same

1*5*8=40 and 2*2*10=40

3 ages must add up to the same no

1+5+8=14 and 2+2+10=14

so he is 40yrs old and there are 14 windows

Ta da

"My middle son is red-haired."

So how does this fit in??

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Livet er en lang lort....
Jeg tager bare større bider end andre.

what if the postman is 20 though


then it could be 5, 4, 1, with 10 windows... your logic sucks dude

quote:

Originally posted by Cyberdog he says ok the 3 ages must multiply to make his age both sets must be the same 1*5*8=40 and 2*2*10=40 3 ages must add up to the same no 1+5+8=14 and 2+2+10=14 so he is 40yrs old and there are 14 windows Ta da

Sorry dude, you ain't right :/

It could be 2*4*6=48
ad 2+4+6=12 So 2nd postman is 48y.o. and there are 12 windows...
I believe that this is impossible to solve without knowning either the 2nd postman's age or the number of the windows...

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its probably some stupid answer that makes no sense.

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Here is the answer from the website that I got the riddle from:

The most important feature to recognize in solving this puzzle is that Postman A needed to know that Postman B did not have twins in order to solve the puzzle. That means that there must be two possible solutions that satisfied the "age in years" and "number of windows" conditions of the problem. He needed to rule out twins to solve the problem. To summarize, there must have been two potential solutions with 3 son's ages having:

(i) equal products (the age condition)

(ii) equal sums (the windows condition)

(iii) one involving twins and one not.

If you really wanted to be fussy, since a house cannot have a fraction of a window, it also means that the ages of the sons must all be in integers (whole numbers) and not involve fractional ages.

The one solution to the problem that satisfies all of these conditions is (1, 5, 8) which has the same sum (14) and the same product (40) as another possible solution involving twins (2, 2, 10). There is just no other solution that works involving a postman's age less than 90 years old.

The possible alternative solution that you propose (2, 4, 6) does not work since the product (48) is different than 40 and the sum (12) is different than 14. In order for (2, 4, 6) to work, you would have to find another possible solution involving twins that sum to 12 and have 48 as a product. Two possibilities are:

(i) 2-2-12 (no; same product but different sum)

(ii) 3-3-6 (no; same sum but different product)

Cyberdog was right

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