This is a mathmatical equation that cannot supposedly be solved.

Asked by tacres (559

) May 10th, 2012

I can’t remember where I first read this but I thought it was neat.I am sure there are various versions, but the math stays the same.

3 people go to a vacation park & rent a cabin. The desk clerk told the people that the fee was $30.00 per day. They split the cost by each paying $10.00. After they went to the cabin the clerk realized that it was a mid-week rental so he should have only charged them $25.00 for the cabin. He realized that he didn’t have enough change to split the $5.00 refund by 3 so he put $2.00 in his pocket & gave each one back $1.00. So instead of paying $10.00 apiece for the room they each paid $9.00.
Now 3×9 = 27.00 + the $2.00 the desk clerk kept makes the total $29.00. What happened to the missing dollar?
I understand that working it out the other way , $25.00 + $2.00 + $3.00 = $30.00 makes sense but why doesn’t it the first way?

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5 Answers

the 3 quid missing to thirty are the 3 he already gave back. you need to subtract 2 from 27 to get to the 25 the room cost.

ragingloli (52361

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They paid $30 and got back $3, so the room cost them $27. You can’t add the $2 to the $27, because the $2 is part of the $27. The other part is the $25 actual cost for the room.

LostInParadise (32279

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