A camel hair broker buys from locals and sells back to merchants. The broker never buys for himself, but upon receiving an order to buy, finds someone who wishes to sell, and charges 2 percent commission to each of them, thereby making 4 per cent on the transaction.

However, by juggling with his old fashioned balance scale that uses weights, he always manages to add to his profit by cheating!

Upon receiving a consignment of camel’s hair he placed the same upon the short arm of his scales, so as to make the goods weigh one ounce light to the pound, but when he came to sell it he reversed the scales so as to give one ounce to the pound short, and thus made $25 by cheating.

On one particular occasion, he makes $25 by cheating in the weight, as he buys a bundle of camel hair with a weight 1 ounce too heavy and sells with one 1 ounce too light.

In this case, how much does he pay for the goods?

If you can figure it out, enter your answer into the comments section below. Will reveal submissions in a day or 2. thanks

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We’ve been working hard on getting the Smartkit Forums ready. Come Monday, we’ll officially open them up. You’ll be able to:

• post some of your own puzzles
• play forum games
• pick the brains of other smartkit members

OK, here’s Thursday’s challenge. Can you figure it out?

Three students, each carrying an equal number of apples, were met by 9 teachers, who asked for some of them. Each student having given to each teacher the same number, it was then found they had all equal shares. How many had the students at first?

Will unmask submitted answers Monday morning, right before we make the forums live.

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Jake says to his buddy Chirag, "I’ll bet you 1/2 the money in my wallet on the toss of a penny- heads I win, tails I lose."

The penny was tossed and the money handed over. Jake repeated the offer again and again, each time betting 1/2 the money in his wallet. We are not told how long the game went on, or how many times the penny was tossed, but this we know: that the number of times that Chirag lost was exactly equal to the number of times that he won.

Now, did Jake gain or lose by this little venture? Or is it impossible to determine?

Feel free to enter your answer below; submissions will be unmasked Thursday.

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Farmer Thomas sold a pair of cows for $210. On one he made 10%, and on the other he lost 10%- earning just 5% on his transaction. What did the cows originally cost him?

Think you have the right answer? Enter it as a ‘comment’ in the section below. Submissions will be unmasked in several days, thanks.

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Saw some comments show up recently on our first scale balance puzzle (hard!), which reminded me how long its been since we put one of these up. With that in mind:

How many triangles are need to balance scale 3?

feel free to submit your answers in the comment section below. Will unmask Thursday, thanks.

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In a solar system far, far away, 2 planets are exactly in line with their sun (as above).

Icerix, the colder planet farther away, takes 350 days to obrit the sun.

Cetacearth, the watery planet closer to the sun, only takes 100.

Assuming the orbits are in the same plane, in how many days will the 2 planets next be in line with their sun again?

Puzzle concept submitted by Ian Pedder

No complicated angular/rotational geometry is needed to solve!

[Can you figure this one out? Enter your answer in the comment section and we'll reveal all on Friday!]

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What is the area of white (without the semi-circle moon shadows)?

Each square is one square inch.

How do you prove it? (pi=3.142)

Created for Smart-Kit by Forrest Frantz

For the teachers following, this definitely makes for a good printable puzzle.

If you can figure out the answer, feel free to enter it into the comment section below. Submissions will remain hidden for a day or 2 so as to not spoil the fun!

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"My wife’s age", said John, "can be found by reversing the figures of my own age. She is my senior, and the difference between our ages is 1/11 of their sum".

How old is John?

[submit your answers in the comment section below, and we'll unmask them in 1 day]

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Mother Thrifty and her daughter Dollie each drive 30 ducks to the market. Mother Thrifty is eager for a trade, and hurries on with her 30, and reaches the market early when ducks are in demand. She sells two for one dollar; but Dollie dawdles along the road, and when she arrives the market is supplied so she only receives one dollar for every three.

On the way home the mother says, "I got a dollar for two, and you a dollar for three, which makes two dollars for five ducks; but sixty is twelve times five, so we must have twelve times two dollars or twenty-four," but on counting their money they found they had twenty-five dollars.

Why this discrepancy?

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How many minutes is it until 6 am if 50 minutes ago it was 4x as many minutes past 3 am?

[Will unmask submitted answers in 1 day]

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"These are all the hens we have left", said the butcher to the 3 women who were shopping in the market. "Together they weigh 20 pounds, and the little bird sells for 2 cents a pound more than the big bird."

Mrs. Davis bought the little one for 82 cents, and Mrs. Miller paid 2 dollars and 96 cents for the big hen.

Can you tell Mrs. Johnson how many pounds the big hen weighs?

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An Innkeeper purchased an odd number of wine kegs, and one keg of beer. These are shown in the picture above. The Innkeeper then sold an amount of the wine to one woman and twice this amount to another, but kept the beer to herself.

Can you figure out which keg contains the beer? (the kegs were sold just as they were purchased, without manipulating the contents)

[answers can be submitted below in the comments section if you can figure it out. To give everyone a fair chance, however, will keep submissions under wraps for about 2 days. Thanks]

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Can you figure out what the missing number is?

for this math puzzle, will unmask any submitted answers in a day or 2.

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A girl wanted to play on the seesaw. However, she couldn’t find another child to play with her, so she tied some books to one end of the plank to balance her weight at the other.

She just balanced against 16 books, when these were fixed to the short end of the plank, but if she fixed them to the long end of the plank, she only needed 11 as balance.

Now, what was the girl’s weight, if a book weighs equal to a three-quarter book and three-quarters of a pound? (Assume all books are uniform and weigh the same)

[submitted answers to show 1-2 days)

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How can a window, having a height equal to its width, be made twice as large without increasing its height or width?

(will unmask any submitted answers to this puzzle in 24-48 hrs, thanks)

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