How old are the children?

Question

A man bumps into his mathematician friend on the street that he hasn't seen in 5 years. The man asks the mathematician how old his children are. The mathematician, who always replies in riddles said, "I now have three children. The sum of their ages is equal to the number of windows on the building in front of you and the product of their ages equals 36." The friend then says "I need one more piece of information." The mathematician then replies "My youngest child has blue eyes." What are the ages of the mathematicians three children?

Answer 1

Ok, this is a bit more complicated than most people seem to think here... What are the possible combinations to get 36? Those are:

3 3 4
2 3 6
2 2 9
1 1 36 (not likely)
1 4 9
1 6 6
1 3 12
1 2 18

If you look at sums of those you can see that all are different, except for 1 6 6 and 2 2 9 which both have a sum of 13.
The friend could see the number of windows, so if the sum was anything else he would be able to answer, so the sum must be 13 and he requests additional info to decide whether it's 1 6 6 or 2 2 9. The additional info suggest that only one child is youngest, so it should be 1 6 6...

I'm not sure if the "hasn't seen in 5 years" info is relevant... nothing says that he asked anything about the children then. Or he might have forgotten.

Answer 2

The children are 1, 6, and 6. The man asked the mathematician how his CHILDREN were so he knew he had more than one. But they haven't seen each other in 5 years so the first two have to be at least 5. 1, 6, and 6 is the only combination that works.

Answer 3

I agree that it's 9, 4and 1,
Because the man asked how old were the mathematician's kids. Notice he said children and not child, which lets us know the mathematician has more than one child. Then the mathematician says he know has 3 children which lets us know he already had 2 since the last time he's seen his friend. So this last child must be awfully young.

Answer 4

uhm, 4x3x3=36? guy has twins!
i'm assuming that if his friend had to ask, the mathematician hadn't any child yet when they last met, so all kids would have to be below 5yrs of age.

no. 4 1/2; 4; and 2. sorry didn't look out for the youngest child hint!


nice question though! (twins can't be because ony his youngest can have blue eyes..)

Answer 5

Any of the following:
1, 2, 18
1, 3, 12
1, 4, 9
1, 6, 6
2, 2, 9
2, 3, 6
3, 3, 4

Answer 6

6, 6, and 1

Answer 7

Don't kno about the blue statement but y=1 m=3=12 are possible ans

Answer 8

1, 4, and 9

Answer 9

This is the nice gap he met this psychi mathematician
And now onwards he should not meet him again
He should say ....... do hell with ur BODMAS


And dear diamond what i want is under root of 4
n if u like to give square of 10 then i ll be very grateful to u
till then ba bye babe
lovely question
but no answer
lol
;)

Answer 10

well i would say 1, 4 and 9