<p>A rope is placed over the top of a fence, the same amount of rope on both sides of the fence. The rope weighs one-third pound per foot.</p>
<p>On one end of the rope hangs a monkey holding a banana, and on the other end is a weight equal in weight to the weight of the monkey.</p>
<p>The banana weighs two ounces per inch. The length of the rope (in feet) is equal to the age of the monkey (in years), and the weight of the monkey (in ounces) is as much as the age of the monkeys mother (in years). The combined ages of the monkey and its mother are thirty years.</p>
<p>The weight of the banana plus half of the weight of the monkey is one-fourth as much as the sum of the weights of the weight and the rope, where all weights are in the same units.</p>
<p>The monkeys mother is half as old as the monkey will be when it is three times as old as its mother was when she was half as old as the monkey will be when it is twice as old as it is now.</p>
<p>How long is the banana?</p>
<p>I had so much fun solving this problem (5.75 inches by my calculations). Do engineers solve math problems like this on a regular basis?
I like brain teasers a lot. What should I study in college?</p>
<p>I’m an engineering major, and usually I have a longer attention span, but this time I got bored in the middle of reading it and skipped to the end of the post. Problems aren’t convoluted for the sake of being convoluted, they’re convoluted because all the data you can get is convoluted and that’s just an annoyance. I don’t think you can take brain teasers and pick a college major out of them.</p>
<p>+1, Engineering student and too much of a pragmatist to even consider doing that.</p>
<p>That problem is more of a reading comprehension problem than a math problem. The math is simple (algebra), though a lot of people will get caught up in the words.</p>
<p>I’ll agree with the above posters that you can’t extrapolate a major out of such a simple problem. What mathematics courses have you taken; have you enjoyed them? What about physics?</p>
<p>If you enjoy these subjects then there’s a good chance that you’ll like engineering. Deciding on what type of engineering to focus on is dependent on what type of problems you’d like to solve.</p>
<p>I’ll also note that getting a math or physics degree are also viable options. The only problem with those subjects is that the most interesting employment prospects require a doctorate. That may not necessarily be a problem, depending on if you want to do research, how long you want to be in school, etc.</p>
<p>It’s just tedious. If you want to spend a lot of time doing simple math, you might as well go row reduce a 10x10 matrix or something.</p>
<p>Wow, if you like doing stuff like that you should get into Law.</p>
<p>I hope you know that no engineering major will ever have a problem like that. I don’t have to be an engineer to tell you that weight never varies with age.</p>
<p>I love these types of problems, but this one is just over the top in the “who the heck cares because it is so convoluted” department. Bottom line, if you can do this problem you can be any kind of engineer you want. If the idea that some professor might actually give you a problem like this (but without the age nonsense) makes you want to throw up then don’t go into engieering. Real life problems with this degree of detail are a lot of fun IMHO.</p>
<p>Yes, if you like puzzles, try putting a building together!! You have to understand math AND welds!</p>