Stephen was looking at a photo. Someone asked him, "Whose picture are you looking at?" He replied: "I don't have any brother or sister, but this man's father is my father's son." So, whose picture was Stephen looking at?

Suppose there is this little town with a finite numer of people: (1) No two inhabitants have exactly the same number of hairs. (2) No inhabitant has exactly 409 hairs. (3) There are more inhabitants than there are hairs on the head of any inhabitant. So, what is the largest possible number of inhabitants in that little town?

Question

Stephen was looking at a photo. Someone asked him, "Whose picture are you looking at?" He replied: "I don't have any brother or sister, but this man's father is my father's son." So, whose picture was Stephen looking at?

Suppose there is this little town with a finite numer of people: (1) No two inhabitants have exactly the same number of hairs. (2) No inhabitant has exactly 409 hairs. (3) There are more inhabitants than there are hairs on the head of any inhabitant. So, what is the largest possible number of inhabitants in that little town?

kainui · Answer

I couldn't stop laughing after the first question, because I would slap Stephen if he gave me that kind of smart retriceanswer. Here's how you might think of it:

This man's father is: my father's son. Ok, so that last part is saying "My father's son" well since he has no brothers or sisters, then it must be him. So you could rewrite the sentence as: This man's father is Stephen. Might be a little more obvious now.