The Sheepfold

Unreviewed import — a classic from the public domain; its solution has not been machine-checked yet.

math

It is a curious fact that the answers always given to some of the best-known puzzles that appear in every little book of fireside recreations that has been published for the last fifty or a hundred years are either quite unsatisfactory or clearly wrong. Yet nobody ever seems to detect their faults. Here is an example:--A farmer had a pen made of fifty hurdles, capable of holding a hundred sheep only. Supposing he wanted to make it sufficiently large to hold double that number, how many additional hurdles must he have?

Solution

Commit an attempt to unseal the proof. Write your answer — right or wrong, thinking it through is the point.

Solution

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