Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Puzzle: Ages of sons

Problem: Two mathematicians meet on a plane.
"If I remember correctly, you have three sons”, says A. “What are their ages today?”.

“The product of their ages is thirty-six”, says B, “and the sum of their ages is exactly today’s date”.

“I am sorry, B”, A says after a minute, “but that doesn’t tell me the ages of your sons”.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, my youngest son has red hair”.

“Ah, now it’s clear”, A says, “I now know exactly how old your three sons are”.

What are the ages of B’s sons ?

3 comments:

Saurabh Joshi said...

2,3,and 6

Kedar said...

A could not guess the answer after B told about the sum and product, ...

If this was the answer, A would have guessed it correctly immediately.

HemanT AgrawaL said...

1,6,6