Saturday, October 24, 2009

The Enigmatic Hotel Room Dilemma

There were three businessmen who were renting out a hotel room. They entered the hotel and the desk clerk charged them $30 for a room. So they each paid $10 each and went up to their room.

Soon, the desk clerk realized that he made an error and the room was only $25. So he gave a bell boy five 1 dollar bills to take up to the businessmen.

On the way to the businessmen's room, the bellboy thought, "why should I give them the whole $5? It'll just cause dissension and awkwardness amongst them." So he pocketed $2 and gave the businessmen $3 to split amongst themselves evenly.

Now, the businessmen each got a dollar back and paid $10:

$10 - $1 = $9

And there were three businessmen:

$9 x 3 = $27

And if you add that to the $2 that the bellboy kept:

$27 + $2 = $29

So what happened to the extra dollar?!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

jangweon + nina and i spent 27 minutes solving this... and we hate you