Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
An extra for you ;-)
A bank customer had $100 in his account. He then made 6 withdrawals, totaling $100. He kept a record of these withdrawals, and the balance remaining in the account, as follows:
Withdrawals Balance left
$50 $50
$25 $25
$10 $15
$8 $7
$5 $2
$2 $0
-----------
$100 $99 Totals
Why are the Totals not exactly right?
Re: An extra for you ;-)
The fallacy is not the fact that the totals are not equal. The fallacy is the (erroneous) expectation that they should be equal.
Consider going down a (not very uniform) staircase. The withdrawals correspond to the rises between the treads,
and their sum is the total height of the staircase. On the other hand, the sum of the balances corresponds to the sum
of the altitudes of the treads. These two numbers do not have to be the same.
Re: What Nikos said (I think)
If you had $100, and removed all $100 at once, you'd have two columns, one equal $100, and one equal $0, a long way from being equal.
;-)
As Nikos noted, this is a trick question. It is only coincidence that they are even close. ;-)
like the 3 guys renting a hotel room
similar.