The "awesome big riddle thread" made me want to post a favorite puzzle I know. Hopefully it won't be something that has been posted here before. Here goes:

A surveyer is going door to door to collect some information about each household. At one particular house, a woman answers the door. The surveyer says he has a few questions to ask. It went something like this:

"How many children do you have?"
"Three."

"What are their ages?"
"Well, I can tell you that their ages multiply to give you 36."

"That doesn't really tell me their ages..."
"OK, their ages also add to give you the number of this house."

The man walks over to the mailbox, looks at the house number & returns.

"That still doesn't tell me what their ages are."
"Well, what if I told you that the youngest has brown hair?"

"Thank you."
"You're welcome."

The man writes down the ages of the children & goes to the next house. What are the ages of the woman's children?

Also, please don't search on the web for the answer. Try your hardest to solve it on your own. And if you know the answer, post it, & I'll say if it's right or not. But don't post the explanation. It will be considered exposure! (ha?) Even with the answer posted, people can still work at arriving to the right answer on their own.

I'll post the explanation sometime late tonight.

P.S. Again, please don't post the explanation if you know it. Not only will it keep those who can't figure it out from giving up & reading it, but I just enjoy explaining this one. Thanks!

(6, 6, 1) although I mention another possibility to you in a PM.

I believe it's 2/2/9... My reasoning was in the massive riddle thread.
http://www.penguinmagic.com/discuss/vie ... c&start=75

digitaltrip

He says "youngest girl" ... however, I believe that's not enough information to know the answer with certainty unless you assume something else. We'll have to wait until the solution gets posted.

Yeah, the answer's 1, 6 & 6. I never read all of the massive riddle thread. I guess someone already asked this one.

Also, as balducci pointed out in a PM, I should have said "the youngest has brown hair" instead of "the youngest girl has brown hair." I'll go ahead & edit the post.

You know, now that I think about it, this puzzle could technically have two different sets of answers... we can talk about that tonight.

I say 3,3 and4

the answer is 2,2,9 not 1,6,6 because he says the oldest one and there cant be 2 oldest so it 2,2,9

The answer's 1, 6 & 6. It could possibly be 2, 2 & 9, also, but the answer's supposed to be 1,6,6.

It says youngest.

I just love when people post answers or opinions when they don't even understand the question That's what brings me back to these forums time and again

Hey, balducci, do you also see how 2, 2, & 9 is technically a possibility?

Wasn't (2,2,9) the second possible solution I sent you? To break the tie we need additional info, so depending on how you phrase the question we could have (2,2,9) as an answer ... it fits your second riddle phrasing but not the first phrasing you posted if we are being picky.

But the (3,3,4) solution someone posted is a little out to lunch

I mean can you see how it could be 2, 2, 9 without any additional info.

I'm getting confused

Are we talking about the solution to the original "youngest girl" version of the riddle? Then (2,2,9) would work if the other 2 kids were boys.

If it is the "youngest child" version, then (2,2,9) works if we allow twins.

Otherwise, I don't see where you're going with this ...

Also, if we allow some adopted children into the equation, you could also have the Mom say "my youngest" in reference to a 9 year old she gave birth to, provided that she doesn't consider her two adopted 2 year olds as being her own children ... which would be sad