Puzzler of the week

[Scott MacLean]

This week's puzzler:

The owner of a record store hires a pimply faced, high-school kid to work on Saturdays.

He says to the kid, "You know what to do.  But I got one little extra thing for you. I�ve got two piles of used 45-PM records that I�m selling for my friend Sam. Each pile consists of 30 records.

"The records in the first pile are two for a buck. The other pile is three for a buck. I don�t want you to put the money in the register. I�ve got to give it to Sam. Put the money into the cigar box under the counter."

At the end of the first day, the owner comes back to the store, finds that all of the records have been sold and there is $25 in the cigar box.  The two-for-a-dollar records sold for a total of $15, and the three-for-a-dollar records sold for a total for ten bucks.

Encouraged by the rapid sales, the next week Sam shows up with 60 more records.

The owner gives the kid the same instructions. This time, the kid says, "I noticed last week that people were taking two records from one pile and three records from another pile, so I decided that this week I�m going to sell five for two bucks."

The fellow who owns the record store says, "Seems like a good idea."

At the end of the day, though, the owner opens the cigar box and there�s $24 in there.  He says, "You�re missing a dollar!"

The kid says, "No, I sold all the records."

And that�s the question. Where�s the missing dollar?

Last week's puzzler:

Last month, Tommy and I decided that we were going to take a trip north to see the foliage.  Tommy drove the first 40 miles.  I drove the rest of the way. We looked at the foliage for three or four minutes, then decided to head home.

We took the same route home.

On the way back, Tommy drove the first leg of the trip and I drove the last 50 miles.

I got home and my wife said, "Who did the driving?"

I explained that Tommy drove the first 40 miles, then I drove the rest of the way. On the way back, Tommy drove the first leg of the trip, and I drove the last 50 miles.

She said, "But who did most of the driving?"

I told her, "You can figure it out. In fact, you can even figure out how much more of the driving was done by that person."

And that�s the question. Who drove the most -- and how many more miles did that person drive?

Last week's puzzler answer:

Well, you could make it complicated, you could say "Well, gee, I have don't have enough information. I don't know the distance, I don't know the speed, I don't know anything," but I always like to boil these problems down to what I call the limiting case. And I said that you drove the first 40 miles and I drove the rest, okay. And then on the way back you drove the first leg and I drove the last 50.

You could make the distance anything you want, but let's make it 50 miles. So you drove the first 40. I drove the last ten. On the way home you didn't drive at all.

I drove 50 miles, how many miles did I drive? 60 miles. How many miles did you drive? 40. How many more miles did I drive? 20 miles.

So no matter what that distance is in between...you will always drive 20 miles more.

_______________________
Scott MacLean
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
ICQ: 9184011
http://www.nerosoft.com