poor wizard... who did he choose

ok, i'm procrastinating, but this is fun
how about this one:

three friends like to play football together. one day they lose their ball. one of them knows that the store sells new balls for 30£, and they decide to each contribute £10 and buy a new one.
they go to the store, and how cool is that? the ball is on sale, for only £25! so they each hand over their 10£-note and get 5 1£-coins change. but how should they divide this among three?
to solve the problem, they decide to "tip" the vendor with two pounds, thus each getting 1£ change.

so let's recapitulate:
- they each paid £10 and got £1 back, so they each paid £9. 3x9 is 27.
- they gave the vendor £2. 27+2=29.
where is the last pound???

heehee...

oh NO...

you cheated! the ball cost £25, plus the £2 'tip' makes £27 THEn there's £3 left - one each!

cheeky - you added the tip twice!

(i surprise myself. usually, anything to do with money and i'm cr*p - just the sight of a £ sign renders my brain useless)

indeed i did. well, what about this one:

a rich camel herder in the deserts dies and leaves 17 camels to three sons. in order to avoid fights after his death, he left a testament. in this he regulated that:
- the oldest son gets 1/2 of the camels.
- the second son gets 1/3 of the camels.
- the third son gets 1/9 of the camels.

the sons are quite confused and don't know what to do - it seems quite pointless to start cutting up the camels. so they call for an old wise man known to be good at solving problems and disputes. along he rides, on his lovely white camel, with his equally white hair blowing in the wind.

after they explain the problem to him, he retires to a tent and ponders all through the night. in the morning he proudly pronounces that he found a solution. but he will only let on if they, if pleased with the solution, will then let him choose his reward.

at a loss for alternatives, the three sons agree. the old man solves the problem, everyone gets their camels and is happy, he chooses his reward and rides away again on his white camel. the sons find that he is extraordinarily just and wise.

how would you solve the problem?

have you got a book full of these???!!!

i'll have to let this one digest - don't get the hump if it takes some time (sorry)

there's a pattern emerging here. i think i've got it again, but not at the deeper level that a mathematician would - someone will have to explain what's actually going on (i know my limits).

the denominators of the fractions are all multiples of 18, so i craftily added in the wise man's camel and it was easy from there...

...until...

...i added together the numerators and they added up to 17.

so he gets his camel back.

?

*lightbulb*

eureka - i need another fraction (1/18)

silly



now, no more - i've got a conclusion to write!