Twisted Math?

Question

Three guys get a hotel room, they are charged $10 each, total $30. Later the clerk realizes he overcharged them and gives a bellboy $5 to take to the men. The bellboy realizes he can't divide $5 evenly between 3 men, so he pockets $2 and gives each guy $1, so the room cost them $9 each, right?

So, $9 each times 3 men is $27, plus $2 in the bellboy's pocket is $29.

Where is the other dollar??

Answer 1

It is figured out properly like this:
$25 for the room
$3 back to the men
$2 in the bellboys pocket
equals
$30 total

Answer 2

Why are you counting the $2 in the Bellboy's pocket as the "other" money???? It's 9 x 3=27 all right, but the "missing" money is the SAME three dollars that you just subtracted from the cost of the rooms!!! Not the bellboy's money! Think about it a little. It makes sense, and it's mathematically correct.

Answer 3

3*9 = 27 is what they paid
27-2 = 25 the room's cost
You just can't add the 2 dollar of the bellyboy to the 27 it's not right

Answer 4

you should calculate like this

9 * 3 = 3 men cost which is $27

Plus 3 dollars over charge = 27 + 3 = 30 dollars

Bell boy's money is only a distraction. It has no meaning to it.
He took took 2 dollars in his pocket that is what it is!

Answer 5

The room only cost $25 so each man only paid $8.33 a piece, technically. If each man was charged $10 a piece, they were all overcharged by a difference of $1.67. If you take that $1.67 and multiply it by 3, for the 3 men, it comes out to roughly $5...the amount the group of men was overcharged by.

Good question!

Answer 6

Check out this yahoo answers search.
People ask this question all the time.
Search for missing dollar.

Answer 7

Oh my lord that's one of my husband's favourite Math puzzles to give to people. You just can't do the math that way. :)