Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had seven sacks, every sack had seven cats, every cat had seven kitts. Kitts, cats, sacks, wives, how many were going to St. However, the problem is a trick question. Since the man and his wives, sacks, etc. Ives , they were in fact leaving--not going to--St. The number going to St. Ives is therefore "at least one" the narrator , but might be more since the problem doesn't mention if the narrator is alone. Should a diligent reader nevertheless wish to calculate the sum total of kitts, cats, sacks, wives, plus the man himself, the answer is easily given by the geometric series.
A similar question was given as problem 79 of the Rhind papyrus, dating from BC. This problem concerns 7 houses, each with 7 cats, each with 7 mice, each with 7 spelt, each with 7 hekat. The total number of items is then.
Wells , p. Or is it? Should we also count the person telling the story? That means the traveller who said "As I was going to St Ives. But is this really the right answer? Have we missed anything here?
After the riddle was published in the August 4, issue of The Weekly Magazine, as described above, a subsequent edition of that journal contained the following solution, submitted by reader "Philo-Rhithmus" of Edinburgh:[9] Why the deuce do you give yourselves so much vexation, And puzzle your brains with a long calculation Of the number of cats, with their kittens and sacks, Which went to St Ives, on the old women's backs, As you seem to suppose?
But grant the wives went too, — as sure's they were married, Eight only could go, — for the rest were all carried. The papyrus is translated as follows:[10] A house inventory: houses 7 1 2, cats 49 2 5, mice 4 11, spelt 2, [sic] hekat 16, Total 19, Total 19, The problem appears to be an illustration of an algorithm for multiplying numbers. The protagonists initially believe the answer to be , only solving for the number of kits. However, they eventually solve the riddle, calling the number — which proves to be correct.
They missed the second deadline, but the bomb did not explode since the villain had not said "Simon says. Later the character played by Ray Milland who overheard the rhyme offers her the answer and Murphy's character explains that she alone was going to St. The rhyme was also the basis of a Sesame Street Muppet skit from the show's first season, in which the boy Muppet holding a numeral 7 sings the rhyme as a song to the girl Muppet twice the second time, the girl is busy writing down the calculations and finally, in keeping true to the spirit of the riddle, reveals the answer as 1 the traditional answer , because he was going to St.
Ives and the kits, cats, sacks and wives were going the other way. Then the girl turns the tables on the boy and asks how many were going the other way. Astonished, the boy responds, "How about that?! In a post-Christmas Pogo comic strip sequence from December , Pogo Possum gives Albert Alligator a book with the poem and Albert immediately gets hopelessly entangled by the riddle.
Pogo's proposed solution: "Gimme the book back an' I'll give you a pair of pants to go with the suspenders you got. References Citations I. Opie and P. Fan Feed.
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