Posted: 9/3/2007 7:19:32 PM EDT
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This was a math question on one of the kids' homework. A woman has a bunch of eggs, and she breaks them. She goes to the insurance agent to file a claim, but she can't remember how many eggs she had. She DOES, however, remember that if she puts them in sets of 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6; she has one egg left over. If she puts them in sets of 7, they come out just right. I'm sure there is a mathematical formula for figuring this out, but I'm so out of practice with math I don't know what it is anymore. What I figured out was that there are 119 eggs (17 * 7) +1 = 120. 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 all go into 120 evenly, so I'm pretty satisfied with this answer. The bonus question is whether there are any other answers that could be correct. Any of you math geniuses want to take a crack at this? |
721 is one of the correct answers. As other posters have said, in your description, you said that the number of eggs is divisible evenly by 7, and if grouped in piles of 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6, you have one egg left over. 119 is incorrect because it is divisible by 7, but 118 is not evenly divisible by 3, 4 or 5. To address this scientifically, I started looking for the least common multiple of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. This number is 60, equal to the product of 2*2*3*5. Note that 2*3 covers 6 and 2*2 covers 4. I then kept multiplying 60 times whole numbers and then adding 1 to see if the resulting number is divisible by 7. Here is the list I came up with: 301 721 1141 1561 1981 Additional numbers that fit this pattern can be determined by adding multiples of 420 to 1981 (e.g., 2401, 2821, 3261, 3681). I hope that helps. |
Very helpful, thank you. |
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What I figured out was that there are 119 eggs (17 * 7) +1 = 120. 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 all go into 120 evenly, so I'm pretty satisfied with this answer. It's a BS question. No woman has more than one carton of eggs in the fridge. It's against their nature. I don't know why they just don't learn. One carton. That's why you had to eat just cereal for breakfast. Or she has to send you out for a carton of eggs because she's baking. A man knows he is going to have a 3 egg omelette for breakfast. With ham and cheese. And biscuits. Real biscuits. Have a pkg of bacon on the side. Or sausage patties. One carton of eggs is 12 and will only last 4 days at that rate. You have to buy more than one damn carton to make a week. |
