I love dining out. That is, until the bill arrives.
More often than not, when it comes time to settle any restaurant check, even folks who had at one point been "straight A" math students completely unravel. Many even begin acting as if they've never seen numbers before.
Recently, a new puzzle reemerged online, tormenting readers with the question, "What happened to the missing dollar?" While this restaurant check puzzle is perplexing tons of folks at present, its core conundrum dates back to the 1930s.
At face value, this puzzle feels like a mathematical problem. However, once you sit with the riddle for a bit, you realize its trick actually lies in the words, not the numbers.
Do you know what happened to the missing money? It certainly had us scratching our heads for quite some time.
Scroll through below to see if you can figure out where the missing dollar's gone!
Recently, a perplexing riddle has been confounding tons of folks all across the internet.
It starts with three friends, enjoying a dinner out.
As the meal comes to a close, their waitress brings over the check.
Their meal costs $30, so they each pitch in $10.
However, once the waitress takes their money back to the register, she realizes their bill should have actually been for $25 instead of $30.
To remedy this mishap, she starts walking $5 back to the group.
On her way back, though, she realizes that $5 will not split evenly amongst three patrons.
So, she pockets two of the bills for herself, and gives each of the three patrons back $1.
If you're following along, that means that each guest now paid a total of $9, bringing their total amount paid to $27.
If the waitress pocketed $2, that brings the grand total to $29.
So, what happened to the extra $1?
Take your time figuring it out, and scroll down when you're ready for the answer!
The solution to this riddle exists in its wording.
As readers, we become misdirected in the moment when the riddler claims we should add the $27 the patrons now supposedly paid ($9 x 3) to the $2 the waitress took for herself.
These dinner patrons didn't just pay $9 each. They also each paid for a portion of the $2 that that waitress stole.
Instead of calculating the amount actually paid as ($9 x 3) + $2 = $29, it should really just be $25 + $3 + $2 = $30.
That's $25 that went to the restaurant, $3 that got returned, and $2 that went to the waitress, for a total of $30!
This riddle shows how powerfully the words we use can reshape our understanding of the truth.
What do you think of this riddle? Were you able to solve it right away? Let us know in the comments.
Please SHARE this riddle with other puzzle-savvy folks in your community!
