The Case of the Lesser Fool
In a quaint town, there lived a mysterious figure known only as the Lesser Fool. He was not just a strange figure but a pathological难题 solver. People from all walks of life would visit him once a year, presenting him with two amounts of money or goods, and asking which one was larger. Unbeknownst to everyone, the Fool always chose the smaller option.
For example, when a grand決 asked whether twelve thousand twelve dollars or eleven thousand eleven hundred and eleven dollars was greater, the Fool confidently selected the latter. Similarly, when a grandmother presented a pie cut into slices, stating it was a Sweet.piece of the portion, the Fool admitted that the one with finer cuts was larger. The Fool’s patience created intrigue as his friends often questioned his reasoning when the puzzles became increasingly complex.
One of the most enigmatic questions was about quarters and pennies: whether one kilogram of quarters was worth more than 25 kilograms of pennies. The Fool, though seemingly oblivious to the nuances, cleverly adjusted his strategy to always select the lesser amount, illustrating his mastery of numerical logic. Despite his ingenuity, he maintained his anonymity, challenging people with riddles even in the futures.
The following questions, though posed every year to the Fool, gave him greater hideuse-agony as people began to notice his methods.
1. The Mt. Kit Carson Pie Quest
The grandmother’s question was famous for its ingenuity: "19/200 of this pie, or 29/300 of it?" The Fool reasoned that the fraction with the larger numerator was larger, so 19/200 was indeed more than 29/300.
2. The Clockmaker’s Challenge
The clockmaker’s question was another classic puzzle. They argued over whether a penny earned every second of the month equaled a penny gained every hour over a century. The Fool, though perceptive, employed mathematical concepts, such as factorials or exponents, to determine the true value.
3. The Envelope Switch
The lawyer’s question detected trickery: one envelope contained $10 plus half of the other’s money, and the other contained $20 minus half of the former’s money. The Fool showed that initially, the lighter envelope contained exactly $15, not more or less.
4. The Hedge Fund Manager’s Reflection
The hedge fund’s question participants struggled to compute the fund’s percentage growth over two years. Despite their calculations, the larger fund achieved a 90% increase in the first year and a subsequent 50% decrease in the second. The Fool, through calculus and numerical methods, saw that the overall gain from 1.90 to 1.95 was about 2.5% instead of a net loss due to the loss in the second year.
The life of the French mathematician Ben Orlin is filled with such puzzles, each a test of wit and wundrful perception. In his latest puzzle, he tackled the>;;
;child who asked for an answer. He explained that a table趋势 showed that even themothers had to reason beyond mere numbers, highlighting the орллscope of the puzzles. As the child and many others waited, the Fool revealed that sometimes, more math than insight is required to resolve the greatest puzzle.
