combined age

chance22 · Jun 30, 2010

I have come across a maths problem.

Dordon is twice as old as Tom. The combined age of Dordon and Tom is 112 years. The question is: how old are Dordon and Tom now?

I think if the combined age of them is 102 or 132, then it's easy to get their age respectively. But as to 112, I don't know how to solve the problem. Or is there different understanding about "the combined age"? As to "how old are Dordon and Tom", is it possible to think that it can also be interpreted as their "combined age"--that is, 112 years? I'm confused.
Looking forward to your help.

emsr2d2 · Jun 30, 2010

chance22 said:
I have come across a maths problem.

Dordon is twice as old as Tom. The combined age of Dordon and Tom is 112 years. The question is: how old are Dordon and Tom now?

I think if the combined age of them is 102 or 132, then it's easy to get their age respectively. But as to 112, I don't know how to solve the problem. Or is there different understanding about "the combined age"? As to "how old are Dordon and Tom", is it possible to think that it can also be interpreted as their "combined age"--that is, 112 years? I'm confused.
Looking forward to your help.

I think you're understanding "combined age" correctly - it's the number you get if you add together Dordon's age and Tom's age.

I am 40. My friend is 52. Our combined age is 92.

BobK · Jun 30, 2010

Since Dordon is such a strange name, I suspect there may be more than one typo. So your two guesses are quite possible. Otherwise, the solution has to depend on fractions of a year. To a fairly close approximation, a year is 365.25 days. So the two ages are 37 years, 121 days and 18 hours, and twice that (as long as they were born at the same time of day - if they weren't, any kind of precision is beyond me ;-)).

Unless it's a trick question... Anyway, your interpretation of 'combined age' is OK.

b

chance22 · Jun 30, 2010

emsr2d2 said:
I think you're understanding "combined age" correctly - it's the number you get if you add together Dordon's age and Tom's age.

I am 40. My friend is 52. Our combined age is 92.

Thank you very much! Then is there an answer to this question? If there is no problem about combined age, what about "how old are Dordon and Tom"? It possible to interprete as their "combined age" instead of their ages respectively?

euncu · Jun 30, 2010

It's odd to choose a number like 112, which is not divisible to three without remainder. But as BobK put it, the ages are 37,33 and 74,66 respectively.(I've found it tedious to calculate the months and the days, so excuse me for those strange-sounding ages)

emsr2d2 · Jun 30, 2010

I'm glad I wasn't the only one having trouble trying to come up with an answer to the actual maths problem! Not being much good at maths, I just assumed I was doing something wrong!

I also think that perhaps one of the men's name was meant to be Gordon (not Dordon, which I've never heard of).

chance22 · Jun 30, 2010

Thank emsr2d2 and euncu very much. It seems that if I'm not mistaken about the meaning of the maths problem, the answer must be 37 years and 4months, 74 years and 8 months.

BobK · Jun 30, 2010

chance22 said:
Thank emsr2d2 and euncu very much. It seems that if I'm not mistaken about the meaning of the maths problem, the answer must be 37 years and 4months, 74 years and 8 months.

... anyone else? ;-)

b

PS It has occurred to me that unless they were both born at exactly the same time of day, the calculation is almost impossible; maybe I should say absolutely - a mathematician might be able to say. If the older of the two was born at 6.00 a.m., he's 74 years, 8 months, and 18 hours old, while the younger [let's say he was born at 11.00 p.m.] is 37 years, 4 months, and 1 hr old. I wonder what the odds are against such a coincidence...:?:

2006 · Jun 30, 2010

It doesn't have to be harder just because 112 is not divisible by 3 without resulting in a fraction.

D = 2T
D + T = 112

2T + T = 112
3T = 112

T = 37 1/3 years old
D = 74 2/3 years old

You don't have to consider days, hours and months. The question is in years.

BobK · Jul 1, 2010

2006 said:
It doesn't have to be harder just because 112 is not divisible by 3 without resulting in a fraction.

D = 2T
D + T = 112

2T + T = 112
3T = 112

T = 37 1/3 years old
D = 74 2/3 years old

You don't have to consider days, hours and months. The question is in years.

Who said anything about years? Here's the question:

The question is: how old are Dordon and Tom now?

If you choose to interpret the question as being ''What are their ages now, in years", of course that makes the calculation easier. To quote my French teacher at the the end of Dictée 'Point finale'.

b

2006 · Jul 1, 2010

BobK said:
Who said anything about years?
"The combined age of Dordon and Tom is 112 years." And age is normally given in years.

One point is that people often have trouble with math questions because they make the question more complicated than it really is.

combined age

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