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Nice solution!

To all : Please solve this riddle.

Once upon a time, an old man had one daughter and two sons. One day he called them and said his testament as follows : half of my horses to my daughter that she is the oldest, and one-third to my second son, and one-eighth to my youngest son. After the death of the man,the sons could not to share horses. Because their father had twenty-three horses.
Now, you tell me how to solve this problem?
For your information, there is answer, and to my idea it is nice.

Avina

12 - 8 - 3. The "issue" is that 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/8 = 23/24.

Avina's picture

This is correct. But this solution is not possible for all of question like this. Of course, I don’t know the solution of this kind questions to logical and mathematical for all this type of questions or riddles. If anybody knows it's formula for this type question, please put here.
But in this riddle, the sons said their problem of their teacher. The teacher after some thinking, he told them that use catalyst! And they used and they were able to share.
Avina

I can propose such continuation for this parable:

They asked one wise man to help them. Wise man added one his horse to the herd to get 24 horses in total and then easily completed the testament: daughter got exactly a half (12 horses), second son - exactly one-third (8 horses) and youngest son - exactly on-eighth (3 horses).
One horse was left after this and wise man got it as a "payment" for help :)

Avina's picture

The horse is added as catalyst.
Here, Catalyst is 1 horse add to 23 horses, after solving problem, It comes out.
Thank you of AndreyBogdanov.
Avina

The catalyst is the missing 1/24 piece in the total to make it human brain compatible. :-)

It says his second son gets 1/3 and his youngest son gets 1/8. Since he only has 2 sons his second and his youngest are the same. It then states that after he dies his sons could not share the horses, that's because one son was left horses and the other was not.
This doesn't solve the problem of them being unable to share so much as explaining why they can't share.

Avina's picture

I think you misunderstand me!
the number of children is "3" not "2".
1- his daughter is his girl. She is the eldest.
2- the second son : the second children is boy and he is bigger of the third children and smaller of his sister.
3- the youngest son is the third children. he is the smallest children.

I hope that there is no problem.

I chose to interpret the words as they are rather than how you intended them. A second child who is a son is not necessarily the second son; he has first, second, and third children or first daughter, first son and second son. Technically his second son is his third child. I understand that that's not what you intended though.

Use super brain , be a giver. I add one from me making total 24 divide 12, 8, 3 and take back my balance one. Problem solved