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A man has 17 cigarettes.

He gives half of the cigarettes to his oldest son.

He gives one third of the cigarettes to his middle son.

He gives one ninth of the cigarettes to his youngest son.

Question:

What brand are they?

Ben Aveling
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    I was this close to closing this as a dup . . . – Rubio Oct 16 '17 at 12:59
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    Why is the actual question in spoiler tags? – Brian J Oct 16 '17 at 14:21
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    @BrianJ: I assume its because this question is something of a joke and it is, in a way, hiding the punchline. – Chris Oct 16 '17 at 15:47
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    I actually love this. I'm one for very small petty humor. – Quintec Oct 16 '17 at 21:16
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    Is the title part of the riddle? Because otherwise it's a horrible title. But knowing the answer, I don't understand how it's related. – JiK Oct 17 '17 at 08:50
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    The question is (or was) in spoiler tags because: 1. for the reason BrianJ suggests, it is as much joke as puzzle, and therefore: 2. we want to give the reader time to leap to the wrong conclusion before they see what the question is. The title is what it is: 1. partly to twig the reader not to expect the expected; and 2. as a genuine apology in advance for something that is as much a joke as it is a puzzle; and 3. click bait. – Ben Aveling Oct 17 '17 at 13:04
  • Clearly not a very good brand, considering he's given away most of what he had. – Pastafarian Oct 18 '17 at 18:01
  • Don't know about the brand, but they might be double-jointed. – philipxy Oct 19 '17 at 02:04

6 Answers6

85

A different possibility:

17 is the brand, not the number of cigarettes. Assuming, of course, that the answer doesn't need to be a real brand.

Matt
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Perhaps they are:

Camel brand cigarettes.

Because.

This puzzle is usually posed with camels instead of cigarettes; see here for example.

Ankoganit
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42

Sterling, which is kind of infamous for sometimes having only 17 cigarettes in their packs (ref1, ref2).

Peregrine Rook
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Aroes
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    Ooh, this one's clever. I've never heard of this (probably because I don't smoke) but it's a fascinating answer –  Oct 16 '17 at 19:02
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This is an old puzzle, but it’s usually asked about camels, not cigarettes. The brand, therefore, is clearly Camel.

Jeff Zeitlin
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Probably not the answer you're looking for but

Chocolate Cigarettes! So he can actually do the fractions properly without destroying the cigarettes.

SomeRandomCat
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2

Also here is the explanation for those who are interested:

1/2+1/3+1/9 = 9/18+6/18+2/18 = 17/18 so the old man would give 9 to his oldest son, 6 to his middle one and 2 to the youngest. 17 in total. 18 is the common denominator between 2, 3 and 9. This way you can divide things that cannot be divided, such as cigarettes or... camels. Apparently it is a famous riddle with camels instead of cigarettes, hence the joke. The trap is that we tend to think in decimals when it comes to dividing non-multiples and so at first it appears to be an impossible problem to solve.

What I especially like here, intended or not, is that the spoiler cartridge looks like a cigarette:

Camel

J Doe
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  • It is impossible to solve. The "solution" is fallacious. It only works if you reinterpret the bequests as permitting normalization. I don't know what you think decimals have to do with it. – Acccumulation Oct 21 '17 at 20:10
  • Nothing in the problem prevents you to do just that @Acccumulation It is the puzzling stack exchange not the math one ;) – J Doe Oct 23 '17 at 00:48