someone told this to me at work tonight:

You and two of your friends go to a hotel to rent a room. The room is $30. You each pay $10. After the bellhop takes your bags up to the room, the front desk clerk realizes she overcharged $5 for the room and returns the difference. The bellhop keeps $2 as tip, and you each get back $1. So you each paid $9, and $9 x 3 people is $27, and $30-$27 is $3. But remember, the bellhop only kept $2. Where did the extra dollar go?

Re: riddle of the day (a good way to win a free beer)

If you were overcharged $5, that means that the room was only $25 to begin with. That leaves an extra $5 which is distributed $1/guest + $2 to the bellhop equaling $5. $5 + $25 for the room = $30 that was originally paid. The wording of the riddle is what throws most people off.

BTW, make it a Stella and we'll call it even. :lol:

Re: riddle of the day (a good way to win a free beer)

i would kill that bellhop for pocketing.

Re: riddle of the day (a good way to win a free beer)

Right, the riddle leads you in an illogical line of thinking. Think about it this way and try to make sense of the math:

You each paid $10 (equalling 30 total), but you each got back $1, so in the end you each only paid $9 (27 total), which leaves $3, but the bellhop only kept $2, and 27+2=29. But you started with 30.. How do you explain that?

I think it probably works better in verbal form at a bar. People start scribbling math on napkins, some blurt out wrong answers, and everybody just confuses each other. When you see it written down it's easy to see right through it.

Re: riddle of the day (a good way to win a free beer)

Where's my beer nigga?

Re: riddle of the day (a good way to win a free beer)

i'm guessing he runs with his two posts and you never see your drink

Re: riddle of the day (a good way to win a free beer)

Fine by me, I'll see to it that he doesn't download until I get my Stella! :evil:

Re: riddle of the day (a good way to win a free beer)

[quote=imported_cneill]Right, the riddle leads you in an illogical line of thinking. Think about it this way and try to make sense of the math:

You each paid $10 (equalling 30 total), but you each got back $1, so in the end you each only paid $9 (27 total), which leaves $3, but the bellhop only kept $2, and 27+2=29. But you started with 30.. How do you explain that?

I think it probably works better in verbal form at a bar. People start scribbling math on napkins, some blurt out wrong answers, and everybody just confuses each other. When you see it written down it's easy to see right through it.[/quote]

Hmm, here is how I thought it:

Each one pays 9 dollars.. so the girl (I was imagining her as a 30 year old girl with a white shirt, glasses and umm.. how do you call it.. brown hair, well but that doesn?t matter) gets 27 dollars (after giving back 3). As the room costs 25$, she gets 2 for herself and the other 25 go in the ..err.. cash box

The "trick" of the whole matter is that you are adding 27 (all the cash she has in her hand) with 2 (the cash she also has in her hand and that she is going to keep), while you should be adding 27 (the cash she has got, 25 for the hotel and 2 for her) + 3 (the cash she gave back) to get to the whole 30 dollars.

Hope I made it somewhat clearer, my english isn?t very good I know :S

Re: riddle of the day (a good way to win a free beer)

okok, hands Skahound his virtual Stella.