Test your mind: a "simple" math puzzle that will confuse anyone

What math activity could be simpler than addition and subtraction, right? Well, let's check it out with this puzzle.

You can see all the conditions in the picture, which is published by OBOZ.UA. On it you see a platform for weighing animals. If you put a frog and a sheep on it, it will be 10 kilograms, if a frog and a horse - 20 kilograms. But the sheep and the horse together will weigh 24 kilograms. How much will all three animals weigh together?

For the first time this picture appeared in social networks and caused a real storm of discussion. The results of calculations everyone got completely different - from 18 to 59 kilograms. Try to find the right answer and you. And do not hurry - this task has no time limit.

Think about how you can solve this problem. Those who have coped, convince that you need to think outside the box. Because there is no simple solution. Give yourself time to think of a way to figure out the right answer. And only when you find it, go to the explanation below.

So, notice that each animal appears on the platform twice. So the total weight of all three combinations will be the double correct result. And that's the clue.

To find the answer, we add 10, 20 and 24. We get a total of 54. Divide that number by 2 and you get 27. That's the solution to this puzzle.

But you can go even further and try to calculate the weight of each individual animal. This will be more difficult, but not impossible. If we take into account that a sheep and a horse together weigh 24 kg, and a frog and a horse weigh 20 kg, it turns out that the sheep is 4 kg heavier than the frog. Total they weigh 10 kg, which means that the sheep weighs 7 kg and the frog weighs 3 kg. The weight of the horse in this case is simple to calculate - it is 17 kg. Add 7, 3 and 17 and again we get 27 kg, which means that the first answer has passed the test. It is exactly correct.

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