17 Camels and 3 Sons
Once upon a time, an older man lived with his three children in a deserted town in a desert. He had 17 camels, and they were his primary earnings source. He used the camel to rent them out to distribute in the desert. One day, the older man died. He had left a will, leaving his possessions for his three kids.
After the funeral and other responsibilities, the three boys read the will. While their father had divided all the property, he had rights into three equal parts. But as he had 17 Camels and 17 is a prime number, camels could not be divided equally. The older man had divided the camel differently.
The older man mentioned that the eldest son would possess half of the 17 camels, the middle son would obtain one-third of the 17 camels, and the youngest would obtain his share of camels as one-ninth!
Everybody was stunned to assess the will and questioned each other about how to split the 17 camels as stated in the will, as it is impossible to separate 17 camels and supply half of the 17 camels to the eldest one. It is likewise impossible to separate the camels among the other two sons as per the will.
They spent countless days thinking about the means to divide the camels as per the will. However, they couldn’t do that. They thought of taking assistance from someone to get the answer.
They ultimately took the issue to the wise man in their town. The wise man listened to the issue and quickly located an option. He asked to bring all 17 camels to him.
The sons brought the camels to the wise man. The wise man included a camel he had and made the total number of camels 18.
He asked the eldest son to read at his father’s will. According to the will, the eldest son has to get half of the camels, which counts to 18/2 = 9 camels! The eldest son among the three got nine camels as his share.
Now, the remaining camels left were 9.
The wise man asked the 2nd son to look at the will. He was assigned 1/3rd of the total camels. Now, the share for the second son will be 18/3 = six camels. So, as per the will, the 2nd child got six camels as per his share.
The elder son shared a general number of camels – 9 + 6 = 15.
The third son read his share of camels: 1/9th of the complete variety of camels – 18/9 = 2 camels.
The youngest one obtained two camels as his share.
Hence, There were 9 + 6 + 2 camels shared between the sons, which counted to 17 camels.
Now, the one camel added by the wise man was taken back by him.
And the wise man solved the issue smartly with his intelligence.
Moral of the Story:
Intelligence is nothing but finding the common ground to solve the problem. In other words, every problem has a solution.
Note: Also read Lesson 2 – Learn English with sentences, not in words (know the importance of sentences)
