Friday, July 22, 2011

Friday Puzzle... On the Farm

I've copied this straightforward puzzler from a Ben Vitale posting:

There is a field with sheep and cows.
Each sheep can see twice as many cows as it can see sheep.
Each cow can see the same number of sheep as it can see cows.
How many cows and how many sheep are there?
(the working assumption is that an animal can "see" all others but not him/herself)
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answer:  3 sheep and 4 cows

3 comments:

Sue VanHattum said...

Can you link back to the original, please?

"Shecky Riemann" said...

Not sure if this is the original link (which I've lost) that I found it on, but here is one (and I also don't know if this problem is original with Ben or not?):

http://www.quora.com/Benjamin-Vitale/Fun-Brain-Teaser-1

Sue VanHattum said...

Thanks for the link. I decided it was a classic, so I changed the animals and put my own name on it. I'm putting this in my book. I'll link to your blog and credit the community of math puzzlers.