Rivers and Graves
There are 3 rivers and after each river lies a grave. So there are 3 rivers and 3 graves. A man wants to leave the same amount of flowers at each grave, and be left with none at the end. What happens though is that each time he passes through one of the rivers the number of flowers he has doubles. So how many flowers does he have to start off with taking into consideration that they double, so that he is left with no flowers whatsoever at the end? Add up the 1st 5 positive nonzero real numbers that can solve this.
The answer is 105.
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1 solution
Let's say he brought along x flowers in his hand and left y flowers on each grave.
0 = 2(2(2x - y) - y) - y
y = 8x - 6y
7y = 8x
x must be a multiple of 7
Answer
= 7 × (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5)
= 7 × 15
= 105