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[seekerdestroyer]

Let's see if anyone can get this, it's a fun one! This is thanks to Cory's father!

The age of a ship plus the age of its boiler is 49 years. If the ship is twice as old as the boiler was when the ship was as old as the boiler is now, how old are the ship and boiler?

Comments

[imtheheroine]

i love you much of a math nerd you've become.

a better way

[anonymous]

I'm not crazy about the "49+2y must be divisible by 3. so, let y=7" part. That requires a little bit of plug and check. The better way is this. You already have two equations with three unknowns: s+b=49 and 2(b-y)=s. Since y years ago, the ship was the age the boiler is now, a third equation is s-y=b. Now you have three equations with three unknowns and it's easily solvable without guessing.