self Maths Puzzle

Five men crash-land their airplane on a deserted island in the South Pacific. On their first day they gather as many coconuts as they can find into one big pile. They decide that, since it is getting dark, they will wait until the next day to divide the coconuts.
The night each man took a turn watching for rescue searchers while the others slept. The first watcher got bored so he decided to divide the coconuts into five equal piles. When he did this, he found he had one remaining coconut. He gave this coconut to a monkey, took one of the piles, and hid it for himself. Then he jumbled up the four other piles into one big pile again.
To cut a long story short, each of the five men ended up doing exactly the same thing. They each divided the coconuts into five equal piles and had one extra coconut left over, which they gave to the monkey. They each took one of the five piles and hid those coconuts. They each came back and jumbled up the remaining four piles into one big pile.
What is the smallest number of coconuts there could have been in the original pile?

Read Solution (Total 0)

self Other Question

One of your female employees insists on being paid daily in silver. You have a silver bar whose value is that of seven days’ salary for this employee. The bar is already segmented into seven equal pieces. If you are allowed to make just two cuts in the bar, and must settle with the employee at the end of each day, how do you do it ? A woman took a certain number of eggs to the market and sold some of them. A next day, through the industry of her hens, the number left over had been doubled, and she sold the same number as the previous day.
On the third day the new remainder was tripled, and she sold the same number as before.
On the fourth day the remainder was quadrupled, and her sales were the same as before.
On the fifth day what had been left over were quintupled, yet she sold exactly the same as on all the previous occasions and so disposed of her entire stock.
(i) What is the smallest number of eggs she could have taken to market the first day?
(ii) How many did she sell daily? (The answer is not zero).