Ok! this one stumps me.

[MaryLynn]

Originally Posted by rondon

the other said well give me one of yours and I will have twice as many ...

Twice as many as what? Will the second man have twice as many as the first man presently has or twice as many as the first man after the transfer? Or am I making this too difficult?

MaryLynn

[Panpan]

Originally Posted by rondon

On the way back from a fishing trip one man said to the other... give me one of your fish and we will be even... the other said well give me one of yours and I will have twice as many ... how many did each man have?

The answer is 5 and 7.

Pierre

[NancyJ]

without any brackets the answer is 3.
Its a basic rule of mathmatics... division and mutiplication come before addition.
Since a half can either mean mutliply by a half or divide by 2, that part comes first.
http://www.easymaths.com/What_on_earth_is_Bodmas.htm

[Panpan]

Originally Posted by NancyJ

without any brackets the answer is 3.
Its a basic rule of mathmatics... division and mutiplication come before addition.
Since a half can either mean mutliply by a half or divide by 2, that part comes first.
http://www.easymaths.com/What_on_earth_is_Bodmas.htm

Easymaths.com overstates the case. Operator precedence is merely a matter of convention. Although "bodmas" is common, there are other conventions with merit. For instance, Hewlet Packard still uses RPN in their high-end calculators. Consider also the case of computer languages like APL with a large number of operators; precedence levels for specific operators would be unwieldly so only left to right or right to left precedence is kept. There are other conventions in use.

So I maintain my answer. The questioner could have avoided ambiguity if the answer were 3.

Pierre

[kschulz]

Pierre, technically you make good points. Yes, there may be other conventions that could be considered. However, I have to agree with NancyJ on this one - without brackets (or commas, or any other information), the correct answer is 3 given the generally accepted rules of precedence.

Sure, a comma might have removed the ambiguity, but it would not make a very good riddle then, would it?

- Kurt