The World of Trotter Math

A Nutty Problem

Mama Squirrel found a bag of nuts in the driveway of the house near her tree home. She decided to separate the nuts into equal portions for her children.When she tried putting 6 nuts on each plate, one squirrel baby was left out and received no nuts at all. (So there was one sad little squirrel now.)

But when she tried putting 5 nuts per plate, there was one nut left over. (At least nobody was unhappy this way.)

What is the sum of the number of the nuts and the number of squirrel children?

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One Response to “A Nutty Problem”

1. Jonathan Evans says:

   May 17, 2011 at 3:51 pm

   With the divisions of the nuts provided in the problem, we know

   N/5 = X + 1/5

   and

   N/6 = X – 1,

   where N is the number of nuts and X is the number of squirrel children. Isolating N in both problems, we get

   N = 5X + 1

   and

   N = 6X – 6

   Setting both equations equal to each other, we get

   5X + 1 = 6X – 6

   1 = X – 6

   7 = X

   We then plug 7 in for X in the original equation and get

   N/6 = 7 – 1

   N/6 = 6

   N = 36

   Thus the sum of the number of nuts and the number of squirrel children, 36 and 7, is 43.