A man has three kids. The product of their ages is 36. The sum of their ages is the man's old apartment number. The youngest kid likes the color yellow. What are the kids' ages?

And dont ask me what the apartment number or the color yellow have to do with anything cause I dont know... :shrug:

10, 12 and 14.
It's easy because yellow is the colour of canaries, canaries are kept in cages...
I'm sure you can follow the logic from there.

Im serious Oli

Besides 10 12 and 14 dont even multiply to 36.

In which I'd say that the question isn't complete.
I was lucky in that 10, 12 and 14 jumped straight into my head, but 32 and a pair of 2 year old twins is just as likely.
Ach, PRODUCT, not sum.
Slap me.
Integer factors of 36 that add up to an apartment number.
So how high do apartment numbers go?
3, 3 and 4.
He lives at number 10.
1, 3 and 12 he lives at number 16.
Any others?
(Doing this in my head).

2, 3, and 6 and he would live at number 11. The problem is, I dont know how either of the other two clues have anything to do with the question.

By the way, the question was posed by my psychology teacher, and its extra credit if I can figure it out. I dont know if the fact that its for a psychology class helps at all...

Ah, psychology...
In which case it's about HOW you go through the process of arriving at an answer and how frustrated you get about/ quickly you realise that the information is incomplete.
And how capable are you at filtering out extraneous (yellow?!? WTF? Ignore) information.
Psychology - leave it alone dude it screws your mind up. :)

i'll just give him (my teacher) a totally nonsensical answer, possibly involving canaries... and other things I might possibly be able to tie together.. feel free to help me come up with it! :)

Tell him that if you'd been told how tall the apartment building was and which day of the week the crocodiles at the zoo were fed you'd have got it easily...

A man has three kids. The product of their ages is 36. The sum of their ages is the man's old apartment number. The youngest kid likes the color yellow. What are the kids' ages?

And dont ask me what the apartment number or the color yellow have to do with anything cause I dont know... :shrug:

You mean you can't fire this out on your own!?

Fine. Ready? 2,3, and 6. If you figure out the multiplication problem, the rest is irrelevant information.

whups! nvm, you did get it. Apply the KISS principle.

1, 4, 9.
Crocodiles are fed on Thursdays.

Tch.
The sum of their ages is the man's old apartment number.
He lives next door.

PS check your PMs.

36, 1, 1. A second wife was involved. The latter two are twins
and here is where he used to live....
http://www.apartrental.com/apartment-paris/paris-apartment-38.html

The fact that there is a youngest child means that the if there are twins they cannot be younger than the older sibling, correct?

Younger by five minutes?

Still 3 possibles.

2*2*9 3*3*4 1*1*36 2*3*6 1*6*6 1*2*18 1*3*12 just a few

Woops, we just eliminated the idea of twins: the question states that there's a "youngest" child...

Younger by five minutes?
Thank you.

Woops, we just eliminated the idea of twins: the question states that there's a "youngest" child... Wait, I thought you got it. One is five minutes younger than the other one year old. The 36 year old is the oldest. Hence.....

I think they'd quibble at twins and a five-minute difference.
Something along the lines of "they're both 1 year old so "younger" doesn't come into it".
Psychologists... don't give 'em an inch :)

So the kids ages are 2 and 3 and 6 and the two year old's favorite character on sesame street is big bird big bird lives in a nest the 3 year old saw a nest once and there were 3 robins eggs or at least they were blue eggs they were at the old apartment which was painted entirely blue except for where it was painted things other than blue and it had 4 rooms and in one of those rooms there once lived a hamster the six year old like to play with and that's how you learn that the father's name was William McGillicuddy Pug. That's not so hard.

I think there is a door open with the product of their ages - can we uses months? For one. So he has three kids, with different mothers, and we use months instead of years.

Or we could be precise with decimals and use the cube root of 36.

I think they'd quibble at twins and a five-minute difference.
Something along the lines of "they're both 1 year old so "younger" doesn't come into it".
Psychologists... don't give 'em an inch :) You've created third parties and I won't.

Some specifics: the kids' ages must be whole numbers. 1, 2, 3, etc. That means no 1.5, or so many months, and so on. That also means no twins.

Also, when I turn in the answer, I must explain how I used each clue to solve the puzzle.

Tch.

He lives next door.

PS check your PMs.

Why? It says I have no new Private Messages... :shrug:

That's 'cos that was aimed at SimonAnders and he deleted the post it refers to...
Sorry Tim.
Blame Simon :)

Some specifics: the kids' ages must be whole numbers. 1, 2, 3, etc. That means no 1.5, or so many months, and so on. That also means no twins.

Also, when I turn in the answer, I must explain how I used each clue to solve the puzzle.
Damn. I was going to label 'in womb' as negative numbers counting backwards from birth. Three mothers. One has a 6 month old fetus, thus -3. One has a 7 month old fetus, thus -2. The third mother has a six year old. He used to live in apartment one in a duplex. The youngest's favorite color is yellow because that is what she sees when her mother's belly is exposed to direct sunlight.

But now I won't say that.

That's 'cos that was aimed at SimonAnders and he deleted the post it refers to...
Sorry Tim.
Blame Simon :) Oh, no he counted wrong. And I never got any PMs either. What some people will do to cover up their mistakes.....

I think I've got it:

King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand is the person most closely associated with the color yellow, as he was born on a Monday. The reason the youngest child is fond of yellow then, obviously, is his subconscious affinity for the Thai nation. The country code for Thailand is 764, and when you subtract the number 575 from 764, the average wavelength of yellow light, you get 189. When you divide that number by 3, the number of kids the man has, you get 63. Now, the year 63 AD started on a Saturday, the 7th day of the week. The number 7, of course, is the sum of any 2 numbers on opposing sides of a 6-sided die... 2 opposing sumbers --> 2 years of age. Obviously. So the youngest kid is 2 years old. Given that the product of the kids' ages is 36, the other 2 kids ages must multiply to 18. So how do we explain that?...

And it has to have something to do with his apartment number

Found this on google. Same sort of thing, but much more information is given. I think you are supposed to assume there are twins, in which case the ages would be 6, 6, and 1.

A census taker approaches a house and asks the woman who answers the door,"How many children do you have and what are their ages?" The woman replied "I have three children. The product of their ages is 36, the sum of their ages is equal to the address of the house next door." The census taker walked next door, but then came back and said, "You didn't give me enough information." The woman replied, "I can't talk now -- I have to go. I hear my oldest child calling." The census taker then says -- "That's okay. I have everything I need now."
Question: What are the ages of each of the three children and why did the census taker decide he had all he needed after the second visit?

Answer: The reason the census taker could not initially figure out the children's ages even after determining the number on the house next door (which was 13)is that there were still two possibilities for the kid's ages: 9 + 2 + 2 and 6 + 6 + 1...both of which equal 13 and have a produce of 36. But he didn't know if the twins were older, or the single child. But when the home owner stated that her "oldest" child was calling, the Census taker presumed that there was a single oldest child, rather than twins, since it was unlikely of her to refer to one of a set of twins as her oldest child. Therefore, the children's ages were presumed to be 9, 2, and 2.

I was rightttttttt

Except that example uses oldest and Tim's question referred to youngest.
So maybe the twins in this question are older than the 3rd child?

But I was not given the apartment number. And the other story did not mention a favorite color. And the kids in my problem cannot be twins.

Is there any situation in which there could be twins that are older than the non-twin? Mathematically?

Oh 6, 6 and 1. Except how could a 1-year old have a favorite color? and if he did how would anyone know?

I think I've got it:

King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand is the person most closely associated with the color yellow, as he was born on a Monday. The reason the youngest child is fond of yellow then, obviously, is his subconscious affinity for the Thai nation. The country code for Thailand is 764, and when you subtract the number 575 from 764, the average wavelength of yellow light, you get 189. When you divide that number by 3, the number of kids the man has, you get 63. Now, the year 63 AD started on a Saturday, the 7th day of the week. The number 7, of course, is the sum of any 2 numbers on opposing sides of a 6-sided die... 2 opposing sumbers --> 2 years of age. Obviously. So the youngest kid is 2 years old. Given that the product of the kids' ages is 36, the other 2 kids ages must multiply to 18. So how do we explain that?...

I think I've figured out the rest. Most apartment complexes dont have an apartment no. 13 right? cause its an unlucky number? So the mans apartment number does not equal 13. The number 11 also does not equal 13. Therefore by the transitive property, the man's apartment number is 11.

x = not z
y = not z
x = y

So the two ages must multiply to 18 and add to 11-2.

6x3=18
6+3=9

Done. The ages are 2, 3, and 6. :) :thumbsup:

I am still open to suggestions, revisions, alterations, etc.

2,3,6

1,2,18
1,3,12
1,4,9
1,6,6

So here's the answer my mom came up with. The youngest kid is 2, because thats the age you start poddy-training kids, and every time he pees (yellow) in the toilet, he gets a reward. So he likes the color yellow. That means that the other two kids ages must multiply to 18. Factors of 18: 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 18. But it cant be 1 or 2 (no twins), which means its gotta be 3 and 6. So 2, 3, 6 is the answer...