Children’s Riddle
The father of my son has four children. My son is my only child. How many children do we have in total together?
Mathematics, applications of mathematics to life in general, and my life as a mathematician
The father of my son has four children. My son is my only child. How many children do we have in total together?
Dmitry:
Four children
23 January 2013, 12:18 pmPetter:
Umm, four?
23 January 2013, 12:43 pmJesse:
I’d go with one.
23 January 2013, 1:36 pmKhalil Sawant:
One,
23 January 2013, 1:38 pmThe speaker is a lady and her husband has 3 kids by another marriage
swiety:
Hmm, total together, one. Total, four?
http://sketchtoy.com/19782308
23 January 2013, 2:25 pmFelician:
Four?
24 January 2013, 2:14 amhoppa:
one
24 January 2013, 4:42 amKonstantin:
Four (if your son is your common child) or five (if your son has another father, and all 4 his brothers-or-sisters-in-law has another mother).
24 January 2013, 9:19 amfibonicci:
i think one
28 January 2013, 3:25 amAndrew:
“Together” as in “added together”, or as in “with each other”?
Depending on this, four or one.
29 January 2013, 10:00 amTanya Khovanova:
You are all right. Depending on the meaning the answer is 1 or 4. I am glad no one said 5.
29 January 2013, 10:55 amPrimecrank:
Logically, one or four, yes.
But grammatically, I’d say one - the question says “in total together”. “Together is redundant unless it modifies the meaning of “in total”. The answer to how many children “in total” is four, but three of those aren’t “together”.
So it probably depends whether you put more store in logic or grammar…
7 February 2013, 6:17 amTanya Khovanova:
Primecrank,
I love your explanation. Initially I wrote this puzzle hoping that people would answer 5. But with my grammar mistake, it became a more interesting puzzle.
7 February 2013, 10:23 am