Answer To the Rainy Monday Riddle

Here is the Riddle from Monday.

Answer from Car Talk

The answer is $13.50. All that was damaged was volume 2, which is the volume in the middle. You have volume 1 sitting on the shelf to the left. Volume 2 is next to it on the right. And volume 3 is even further to the right.

Now remember, as the writer said, when he reached for them on the shelf he could see that mold had damaged every page and cover from the front of volume 1, though that cover was undamaged, to the back cover of volume 3, though that too was undamaged. So as the books are placed on the shelf, the cover of volume 1 is the closest thing of volume 1 to volume 2.

So if you go to your bookshelf and look at three books and imagine they're labeled volume 1, volume 2, volume 3, you'll see that the book in the middle is the only one that was damaged by the mold, and there were two covers damaged. Right? Those two covers, the front and back cover of volume 2.

And the reason it was $13.50 was that even though there were 2500 printed pages, there were only 1250 pages of actual paper, because there's printing on both sides. So it's only a penny apiece to clean each page. And two covers, right, 50 cents apiece, $13.50.

The riddle is somewhat flawed unless the actual collection of books really has printing on both sides of every page in the 2500 total pages per book. I highly doubt it. Further still, the fact that you could actually clean both sides of the page leaves me a little suspicious. It would probably be easier to just find a replacement for Volume 2 altogether.

Stay tuned for another Riddle. This one will either be deceptively simple or a real nugget scratcher.

 
 
 

Rainy Monday Morning Riddle

It’s Monday and I am finding an excuse to write something. I heard this riddle while listening to Car Talk on NPR. Here is the riddle and it’s up to you, my four readers to solve it….. and you must show your work. Now, if you listen to Car Talk and already know the answer keep your trap shut and let the others have a chance. I’ll be moderating comments here at the blog and will only publish them after enough time has passed to give you a chance to answer. Here we go.

Recently I had a hankering to read Edward Gibbons' three-volume set, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, no small undertaking considering since there are exactly 2,500 pages of text and illustrations in each volume.

Sadly, as I reached for them on the shelf I could see that mold had damaged every page and cover from the front of volume 1, though that cover was undamaged, to the back cover of volume 3, though it, too, was undamaged."

I called the local book repairer and he said that it would cost a penny a page and fifty cents a cover to repair. He says, 'Bring the affected volumes over and come back in a week, I'll be all done.'

So I show up in a week prepared to pay the bill, and it's about half of what I expected it to be. The statement that it was half is a hint. The question is how much was the repair?

 
 
 
UPDATE
Here is the answer.