Two Fathers
Puzzle. Two fathers gave money to their sons. The first father gave $200, and the second father gave $100. Yet the total amount received by the sons was only $200. How come?
Standard answer: There were three people: a son, his father, and his grandfather. The grandfather gave the father $200, and the father gave the son $100.
In many puzzles, my students come up with a surprising variety of alternative solutions—but not for this one. For many years of my teaching, this puzzle stayed untouched by new ideas. Perhaps the puzzle is simply too well known. But recently, I finally heard an alternative answer:
- The money was taxable.
Ivan:
Why did the alternative answer take so many years to appear? This is easy to explain (retroactively): your students are young and do not know that THE||IRS = THEIRS
22 March 2026, 6:47 amSameer:
This one just occurred to me, not sure if you have heard this one: $200 was given as $100 in equity/alternative forms and $100 in cash, and the equity lost it’s value by the time that son had received it.
23 March 2026, 1:52 pmKorepetytor Matematyki:
The joke lands because it is not merely funny; it is recognizably true. The standard solution belongs to the world of puzzles, but “the money was taxable” belongs to the world we know — where arithmetic is one thing and the final amount is quite another.
27 March 2026, 4:14 pm