Math question. help please.?

Question

A man was killed in an unfortunate traffic accident. His wife was pregnant. Before his death, the man made out a will that stated that if his wife gives birth to a boy, his estate is to be divided in the proportion of two thirds to the son and one third to his wife. If his wife gives birth to a daughter, then the daughter gets one fourth of the estate and the wife the remaining three fourths. Remarkably, eight months after the accident, the wife gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl. How should the estate be divided so that the proportions in the will are properly considered.

Answer 1

You could look at it like this:

If it is a boy, he gets twice the mothers share of the fortune.
If it was a girl, she would get 1/3 the mothers portion.

Set up equation: Mom = x Son = 2x and daughter = .33x.

IF twins were born, you could then split it like this;

x + 2x + .33x = Amount of fortune.

Say the fortune was $1000 dollars, to make it simple.

the equation would yeild: Mom gets 300, son gets 600, and daughter gets 100.

Doesnt seem fair for the daughter, but that seems to be the way to do it to keep the old mans wishes in porportion.

Answer 2

If E is the total value of the estate, then in the case of a boy, it should have gone (2/3)E to the boy and (1/3)E to the wife. In the case of a girl, it should have gone (1/4)E to the girl and (3/4)E to the wife. We can restate this as: a boy gets twice as much as the wife, and a girl gets 1/3 as much as the wife.

So if W is the proportion the wife gets, then the fraction the boy gets should be 2W and the fraction the girl gets is W/3. We need W, 2W, and W/3 to add up to 100% of the estate, so
:
W + 2W + W/3 = 1
3W + 6W + W = 3
10W = 3
W = 3/10

This means the wife gets 3/10 of the estate, the boy gets 6/10, and the girl gets 1/10. Or you could easily convert this to 30%, 60% and 10%. This way the child-to-parent ratios are preserved. You'll find that in some of the other answers people gave, that isn't the case.

Some people were using percents, which is a bad way to go about this. Percents are not exact, and if something is worth millions, then "3.33%" could mean cheating one of the heirs out of thousands. They wouldn't put up with that!

Answer 3

The man apparently intended that the son get twice as much as the wife (2/3 to 1/3), and the daughter get one-third of what the wife gets (3/4 to 1/4).

Since the wife is the common reference point, let her "share" be X. The son gets 2X, and the daughter gets .33X. The sum of these is 3.33X, which will be the whole estate.

Divide 1 (or 100%) by 3.33, and that is the percentage of the wife's share (X), or 30%.

The son gets 60% of the estate (twice the wife's amount), and the daughter gets 10% (one-third of the wife's amount).

Answer 4

Half of the estate should involve the girl, and the other half the boy.

So, since the girl gets one quarter, she will get one quarter of one half of the estate. That leaves 1/8 for the girl. (3/8 for the mom)

For the boy, who gets 2/3, will get 2/3 of half of the estate. That's 2/6 of the estate for the boy, or one third. (leaving 1/6 for the mom)

The mother gets whatever remains. The boy's estate(1/3), and the girl's estate(1/8), add up to 11/24, leaving 13/24 for the mom.

So, the girl gets 1/8, the boy gets 1/3, and the mother gets 13/24 of the estate.

Answer 5

wife has a boy= boy 2/3; wife 1/3
wife has a daughter girl 1/4 wife 3/4

wife has a daughter and a son
2/3+1/4+X=1
USE 12 AS THE LCD
2/3=8/12
1/4=3/12
--------
11/12
Therefore son gets 8/12 daughter gets 3/12 and wife gets 1/12 8/12+3/12+1/12=12/12=1

Answer 6

obveously to me the wife gets nothing and its all the kids 1/4 t the girl and 3/4 to the son

Answer 7

well its supposed to be
male;2/3boy,1/3 mom
female;1/4girl,1/4 mom
so i guess divide it into 12ths and figure it from there
my guess male 8/12, female 3/12 mom 1/12