OT: Kids like this one.

Feb 05, 2006 12 Replies

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Robatoy 20 years ago

A woodworker near here passed away recently. When he died, he had 17 boards of Brazilian Rosewood.

In his will, he had left 1/2 of those boards to his oldest son, 1/3 to his middle son, and 1/9 to his youngest son. The family discussed/argued/fought over how to best split up the lumber. To no avail. No matter how hard they tried, they could not make the fractions work into the number 17, and nobody wanted to cut those boards.

The village idiot made a suggestion that worked. He suggested he'd lend them one of his boards which would make the total

The oldest son got 9 boards The middle son got 6 boards and the youngest got 2 boards.

9+6+2=17, and the Village idiot took his board back and walked off whistling and thinking who the idiots really were.

-------------------------- CAVEAT!!!! This was meant to be a cute little thing to share with your loved ones, NOT intended to be the fuel for a mathematical flame-war.

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Information here may be outdated?

Mike Marlow 20 years ago

That's the difference between a woodworker and a machinist. For a woodworker, it all came out "close enough". A machinist would have labored over the precision.

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Josh 20 years ago

To whom did the woodworker leave the remaining 1/18? That's the guy who got screwed.

Josh

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Greg O 20 years ago

Converting the fractions to decimal you get,

17 x .5 =8.5 17 x .333 = 5.6 17 x .111 = 1.88 8.5+5.6+1.88=16 in round numbers. I wonder who the old man wanted the last board given to! Pretty simple to see that if you round the numbers up you end up with 17 boards, but that is not what the will stated! Greg

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Robert Galloway 20 years ago

I'd say he intended the remainder to cover the inheritance tax but we all know 1/18th wouldn't be enough :-)

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George Shouse 20 years ago

I'm not sure what the point of the story was. Dad can't add?

17/18 is close enough to 1 for a wood worker?

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Robatoy 20 years ago

*sound of buzzer*

Nope.. that's not it.

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Guess who 20 years ago

Not for the wannabe machinists who use micrometers to set their saw.

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gary in virginia 20 years ago

Reminds me of the old one about the 3 men an the hotel bellman. Remember that one?

Gary

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Leon 20 years ago

They all should be happy. The each got more than their allotted share.

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Robatoy 20 years ago

That's why we luvs Leon. *G*

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Leuf 20 years ago

What did the youngest son do to get so screwed?

Where did he find 17 identically sized pieces of rosewood? Don't tell me he bought them s4s!

And since he knew none of his kids appreciated his woodworking (remember, nobody wanted to cut the wood) he'd be a smart ass about it. Clearly he was a regular wreck poster.

-Leuf

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