I'm disbelieving of this being a Harvard Interview Question, but that is the title given to a question circulating on social media. It runs as follows:
| "7 men have 7 wives. Each man and each wife have 7 children. What's the total number of people?" |
|---|
It's ambiguous and that's probably why it has gone viral, with people offering a variety of answers and opinions and even the occasional quip, such as "Were they going to St Ives?".
So it's not the maths that is interesting but the impetus to debate, discuss wrangle, argue. disagree and tut about the ambiguity.
Still, to get back to the boring old maths, I thought I would ask:
If 7 is replaced by n, what is the smallest answer that we could put forward a case for, and what is the largest?