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June 9, 2009

The toy vendor puzzle



A toy vendor is selling toys from door to door.He visits a house
& asks the owner lady to buy toys for her kids. Lady, being a
smart customer, says to Toy Vendor “If you can tell me the ages
of my 3 Kids correctly then only I will buy Toys from you.”
Toy Vendor says “OK M’am , Please give me some clue”

“If you multiply ages of my 3 kids you get figure 36.And if you add
ages of my 3 kids you get House Number of my neighbour” replies Lady.

Toy Vendor thinks for a while , goes & notes Number of Neighbour’s
house & returns saying “M’am , some more information is required”

“OK, my eldest daughter plays Harmonium very nicely” replies Lady.
“Oh, in that case I have got answer to your question”
replies Toy Vendor & tells the Lady the correct ages of her Kids.

Can you tell ages of Lady’s Kids ?
What is House Number of Lady’s Neighbour ??

17 comments:

Secret Squïrrel said...

Ok. There are a few sets of three numbers that multiply to 36. There must be more than one of these that sum to the house number, otherwise the toy man would know the ages. However, there must be only one of these that has a single maximum value ("eldest") since the toy man is then able to work out the ages.

Presumably the ages are represented by integers (whole numbers) otherwise there are many other possibilities; eg. 0.5, 4.5, 16.

The following sets of triples multiply to 36. Their sum is in the 4th column

1 1 36 38
1 2 18 21
1 3 12 16
1 4 9 14
1 6 6 13
2 2 9 13
2 3 6 11
3 3 4 10

The only ones that sum to the same number are (1,6,6) and (2,2,9) so the neighbour's house number must be 13.

The harmonium-playing eldest daughter must be 9 (unless we allow for the mother identifying a first-born 6 year-old twin as "eldest").

Anonymous said...

its a stupid puzzle..
it dont have proper answer..

dont waste time on this

alok said...

It's a very nice puzzle .. and it had 2 clues if you could locate ..
1st was the "eldest daughter" which means eldest two kids are not twin. 2nd was there will be 2 sum of the ages that would be same .. Which is 13 in this case (cuz then only he needed only one clue to eliminate the one)

Unknown said...

if it wud have been sum thing different than 13 then vendor wu have identified it very well(see the possible combination in first comment) as he knows the neighbours house number, but he still has confusion so he asks for for sum more clues

Anonymous said...

im realy confused i dont understand it

Anonymous said...

Ok, so what is the answer? Does anyone know it actually??

Anonymous said...

9 2 2 is the correct answer

editor said...

9+4+1=14 neighbour home so 13

http://blogentertainmentworld.blogspot.com

Deva said...

I did understand The question... the only problem is that, Where did you get the number 13 ? where does it say that the number of the house is 13 ? :S

Anonymous said...

The house number is 13 because that is the only sum of 3 numbers multiplying to 36 that appears more than once - (1,6,6) and (2,2,9). See Secret Squïrrel's explanation.

Anonymous said...

secret squrrels gay!
you need to use algebra to figure it out you cant assume it is 13 just because it appears twice.
anyway, i know the real answer so in your face

Lakchinar said...

Secret Squirrel, you are brilliant!!!!

Anonymous said...

How about 9,4,1 eldest daughetr is 9 yr old, next is 4 and the last one can be 1, in that case this puzzle does not have single answer...the answer can be 14 too

Tort said...

No it can't be 14, if it was 14 then the toy maker would not have had to ask for more information. That is the key to this puzzle, he can see the house numbers we cannot. If the house number was 14 then there is only one permutation of numbers that fits the criteria, the toy maker the could answer 9, 4 and 1. The sum of the ages has to be 13 as that is the only number with two answers.

I agree that the puzzle maker could have been more specific with the last clue but that is nit picking the puzzle is clear enough.

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

good one...

Anonymous said...

Actually, Secret Squirrel isn't right :)
There is no correct answer as having twins doesn't mean they are identical. The twins could be fraternal, one of each, and the last child also a girl. Therefore the eldest daughter could refer to one of the twins and 1 6 6 could also be the right answer! Stupid puzzle ;)
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