Sheep
SHEEP
Two brothers inherited a herd of sheep. They sold all of them, receiving for each sheep the same number of dollars as there were sheep in the herd. The money was given to them in $10 bills, except for an excess amount, less than $10, that was in silver dollars.
They divided the bills between them by placing them on a table and alternately taking a bill until there were none left.
"It is not fair" complained the younger brother, "You drew first and you also took the last bill, so you got $10 more than I did".
To even things up partially, the older brother gave the younger brother all the silver dollars, but the younger brother was still not satisfied "You gave me less than $10 so you still owe me money".
"True" said the older brother "Suppose I write you a cheque that will make the total amounts such that we each end up with exactly the same"
This he did! - what was the value of the cheque in dollars?
The answer is 2.
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1 solution
The money received was equal to the square of the number of sheep. This problem relies upon the fact that any integer squared that has an odd number in the 'tens' position will always have 6 in the 'units' position. There was an odd number of ten dollar bills received since the older brother started and finished the notes, so there were 6 silver dollars remaining. Two dollars were paid to even up.