The Missing Dollar / El Dolar Faltante

October 18, 2005
This is a problem that seems very popular, the truth is that I never heard it before, is the missing dollar puzzle

3 guys in a hotel ask for room service and they ask for 2 large pizzas… the delivery boy, gives them a bill for exact 30 dollars and each guy gives him a $10 dollar bill, and then the delivery guy goes away.When the delivery guy gives the 30 dollars to the cashier he says that there’s been a mistake, and the bill was supposed to be for only $25 bucks, and the cashier gives the delivery boy 5 one dollar bills for the difference so he could give it back to the guys. The delivery boy goes back but on the way to the hotel he realizes that they didn’t give him any tip, so he thinks that since there is no way to split the5 dollar bills between the 3 guys, he is going to keep two dollar bills and he is going to return to the guys the other 3 bills.When he gets back to the room one of the boys opens the door and the delivery guy tells him that there’s been a mistake and he gives to the boy the 3 one dollarbills and he keeps the other two bills for himself. So far everything is fine, but here comes the fun…Remember: $30 - $25 = $5 Right? and $5 -$3 = $2 Right?Then what is the problem? If everything seems to be all right… Well, the thing is:Each boy originally gave $10 each and then each one of the guys get 1dollar bill on return.This would mean that each guy paid $9 each, which multiplied by 3 equals $ 27. And the delivery guy keeps two dollars bills as a tip.So, $27 + $2 = $29

Then, where is the missing dollar?
I couldn’t solve it so I send it to the testmagic forum, and in there I received a very good explanation in which they introduced me the concept of faulty arithmetic. Here is the explanation:

This is a case of faulty arithmetic. The 3 guys are effectively out by $27. The hotel has been paid $25 and the delivery guy has pocketed $2. 27 = 25 + 2 ---> CorrectAdding the $27 effectively paid by the 3 guys and the $2 that the delivery guy pockets is incorrect because the $2 actually comes out of the $27 paid.You could also just trace the $30 dollars in the pot. The two sides of the balancing equation are:

1) The 3 guys ---> X2) Hotel and Staff
--->.......X......Y...Total
Initially...0.....30....30..
Finally....3.....27....30..

The missing-dollar "puzzle" tries to confuse the reader with faulty arithmetic

I know I won’t find this kind of situation on the real thing but is a very good thing to see how things can be solved some other way the importance of being cool to find the easy side.



Este es un problema según parece bastante popular.. la verdad nunca habia oido de el, es el problema del dolar perdido...

Este problema fue una vez planteado por Pitagoras, claro,
explicado de acuerdo a su epoca...

Tres chicos en un hotel piden room service y piden 2 pizzas
familiares.
El repartidor les lleva una nota por exactamente 30 dolares.
Cada chico le da un billete de 10, y el se va.

Cuando el repartidor le da los 30 dolares al cajero, este le
dice que hubo un error. La nota era solo por 25,no por 30. El
cajero le da al repartidor cinco billetes de 1 dolar y le dice
que les de el cambio a los tres chicos que ordenaron las pizzas.
De camino a la habitacion, se da cuenta que no le dieron propina.
Piensa que como no hay manera de dividir $5 entre 3, se va a
quedar con 2 y les va a regresar los otros 3.

Hasta ahora todo va bien!

Toca la puerta y uno de los chicos abre, el le explica que hubo
una confusion con las notas, le da al chico los 3 dolares, y
se va con sus 2 dolares en la bolsa.

Ahora comienza la diversion!!!!!!

Recuerda $30 - $25 = $5 correcto??
$5 -$3 = $2 correcto???

Entonces, cual es el problema? Todo esta bien, verdad????

De ninguna forma. Contesteme esto:

Cada chico originalmente dio $10 cada uno, y se les dio de cambio 1
dolar.

Esto significa que pagaron $9 cada uno,
que multiplicado por 3 es $ 27.

El repartidor se quedo con $2 dolares de propina.

27 + 2 = 29

Entonces... ???Donde quedo el otro dolar???????

Yo en realidad no pude resolverlo, pero lo envie al foro de testmagic, y alli recibi una muy buena explicación en la cual me hablaban de un concepto conocido como aritmetica con fallas por asi decirlo, en el cual se trata de confundir al lector con un problema mal planteado.

Si lo resolvemos de otra forma, los tres jóvenes se quedan efectivamente con $27, al hotel se ha pagado $25 y al muchacho del domicilio $2.
27 = 25 + 2

Asi que añadir los $27 efectivamente pagado por los jóvenes y los $2 que recibio el repartidor es incorrecto, ya que estos $2 vienen en realidad de los 27 pagados.

Entonces, 25 + 3 + 2 = 30

Este concepto me ha parecido muy interesante y aunque se que en el GMAT no voy a encontrar este tipo de casos, si es bueno uno ver la importancia de plantear las cosas de otra manera para así resolverlas mas fácilmente.
 
posted by Catalina at 10/18/2005, |

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