Simple Maths..!!

[Referee-Observer]

Quite an intriguing solution ….


A farmer died leaving his 17 horses to his three sons.
When his sons opened up the Will it read:

My eldest son should get 1/2 (half) of total horses;
My middle son should be given 1/3rd (one-third) of the total horses;
My youngest son should be given 1/9th (one-ninth) of the total horses.

As it's impossible to divide 17 into half or 17 by 3 or 17 by 9, the three sons started to fight with each other.
So, they decided to go to a farmer friend who they considered quite smart, to see if he could work it out for them.

The farmer friend read the Will patiently, after giving due thought, he brought one of his own horses over and added it to the 17.
That increased the total to 18 horses.

Now, he divided the horses according to their fathers Will.

Half of 18 = 9. So he gave the eldest son 9 horses.
1/3rd of 18 = 6. So he gave the middle son 6 horses.
1/9th of 18 = 2. So he gave the youngest son 2 horses.

Now add up how many horses they have:
Eldest son 9
Middle son 6
Youngest son 2
TOTAL IS 17

Now this leaves one horse over, so the farmer friend takes his horse back to his farm.
Problem Solved!

Moral:
The attitude of negotiation and problem solving is to find the 18th horse i.e. the common ground. Once a person is able to find the 18th horse the issue is resolved. It is difficult at times. However, to reach a solution, the first step is to believe that there is a solution. If we think that there is no solution, we won't be able to reach any!
That's what I call clever mathematics.

[Svejk]

It's odd isn't it. They all seem to have ended up with more than they would have had. (cutting 1 horse into pieces)
But the total works out ok. It's beyond my pay grade.

[Svejk]

^cutting 2 horses into pieces.

[Prudie]

Strictly speaking the father had 1/18 of a horse that he didn't leave to any of them.

[DTCwordfan]

Another name for this is 'Quantitative Easing.'

[Old_Geezer]

The moral is, if you have a number of horses try to allocate more than 94.44% of them in your will.

[baza]

Why did the farmer have 17 horses in the first place, a tractor is cheaper.