Blog Post #8: Ancient Egyptian Fraction Word Problem

 A man who had 12 horses and 3 children wrote in his will to leave 1/2 of his horses to Pat, 1/3 to Chris, and 1/12 to Sam. However, just after he died, one of his horses died too. How will the children divide the 11 remaining horses in order to follow the instructions of the will?

This problem gave me a lot of trouble until I realized using unit fractions that 1/2, 1/3, and 1/12 only adds up to (6+4+1)/12 = 11/12! It would actually be harder to allocate the horses to each child if the 12th didn't die since there would be an extra horse! Unit fractions clearly have the added benefit of visualization :) Therefore, Pat receives 6 horses, Chris receives 4, and Sam receives 1. The remaining horse has died. 




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