Tommy Smart was
recently sent to a new school.
On
the first day of his arrival the teacher asked him his age, and this
was his curious reply: "Well, you see, it is like this.
At the time I
was born—I forget the year—my only sister, Ann,
happened to be just one-quarter the age of
mother, and she is now
one-third the age of father."
"That's all very well," said the teacher,
"but what I want is not the age of your sister Ann, but your own
age."
"I was just coming to that," Tommy answered; "I am just a quarter of
mother's present age, and in four years' time I shall be a quarter the
age of father.
Isn't that funny?"
This was all the
information that the teacher
could get out of Tommy Smart.
Could you have told, from these facts,
what was his precise age? It is certainly a little puzzling.
See
answer |