Amusements in Mathematics | Page 7

all circles are
similar, the same answer will necessarily apply to any coin. The next question is a most
interesting one to ask a company, each person writing down his answer on a slip of paper,

so that no one shall be helped by the answers of others. What is the greatest number of
three-penny-pieces that may be laid flat on the surface of a half-crown, so that no piece
lies on another or overlaps the surface of the half-crown? It is amazing what a variety of
different answers one gets to this question. Very few people will be found to give the
correct number. Of course the answer must be given without looking at the coins.
29.--THE BROKEN COINS.
A man had three coins--a sovereign, a shilling, and a penny--and he found that exactly
the same fraction of each coin had been broken away. Now, assuming that the original
intrinsic value of these coins was the same as their nominal value--that is, that the
sovereign was worth a pound, the shilling worth a shilling, and the penny worth a
penny--what proportion of each coin has been lost if the value of the three remaining
fragments is exactly one pound?
30.--TWO QUESTIONS IN PROBABILITIES.
There is perhaps no class of puzzle over which people so frequently blunder as that which
involves what is called the theory of probabilities. I will give two simple examples of the
sort of puzzle I mean. They are really quite easy, and yet many persons are tripped up by
them. A friend recently produced five pennies and said to me: "In throwing these five
pennies at the same time, what are the chances that at least four of the coins will turn up
either all heads or all tails?" His own solution was quite wrong, but the correct answer
ought not to be hard to discover. Another person got a wrong answer to the following
little puzzle which I heard him propound: "A man placed three sovereigns and one
shilling in a bag. How much should be paid for permission to draw one coin from it?" It
is, of course, understood that you are as likely to draw any one of the four coins as
another.
31.--DOMESTIC ECONOMY.
Young Mrs. Perkins, of Putney, writes to me as follows: "I should be very glad if you
could give me the answer to a little sum that has been worrying me a good deal lately.
Here it is: We have only been married a short time, and now, at the end of two years from
the time when we set up housekeeping, my husband tells me that he finds we have spent a
third of his yearly income in rent, rates, and taxes, one-half in domestic expenses, and
one-ninth in other ways. He has a balance of £190 remaining in the bank. I know this last,
because he accidentally left out his pass-book the other day, and I peeped into it. Don't
you think that a husband ought to give his wife his entire confidence in his money matters?
Well, I do; and--will you believe it?--he has never told me what his income really is, and
I want, very naturally, to find out. Can you tell me what it is from the figures I have given
you?"
Yes; the answer can certainly be given from the figures contained in Mrs. Perkins's letter.
And my readers, if not warned, will be practically unanimous in declaring the income to
be--something absurdly in excess of the correct answer!
32.--THE EXCURSION TICKET PUZZLE.

When the big flaming placards were exhibited at the little provincial railway station,
announcing that the Great ---- Company would run cheap excursion trains to London for
the Christmas holidays, the inhabitants of Mudley-cum-Turmits were in quite a flutter of
excitement. Half an hour before the train came in the little booking office was crowded
with country passengers, all bent on visiting their friends in the great Metropolis. The
booking clerk was unaccustomed to dealing with crowds of such a dimension, and he told
me afterwards, while wiping his manly brow, that what caused him so much trouble was
the fact that these rustics paid their fares in such a lot of small money.
He said that he had enough farthings to supply a West End draper with change for a week,
and a sufficient number of threepenny pieces for the congregations of three parish
churches. "That excursion fare," said he, "is nineteen shillings and ninepence, and I
should like to know in just how many different ways it is possible for such an amount to
be paid in the current coin of this realm."
Here, then, is a puzzle: In how many different ways may nineteen shillings and ninepence
be paid in our current coin? Remember that the fourpenny-piece