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none. she was married to jack, the 4 other couples consisted of her two brothers and sister in laws, and her two sisters and brother in laws.
she had met them all, but the other couples had never met jack, or each other.
and the others each spoke a different language.. hence the different answers.

Nice try Dale - but it's not a trick question (Would I lie to you ).

Care to show us your answer Fairie, 'cos in my answer, you don't need to work out how many hands Jack shook ......... .

Er I think there is ... actually.... Jack shook 4 Peoples hands....

Although I could be wrong.....

Heres my working out....

Jack asked 9 people and each answer was different... Since the maximum number that could be shook was 8, we can assume that everyone else had sequencial numbers down from there.... Ie 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8...

Now if you number the guests from one to 10.... there is one amount of numbers which would represent Jack.... (is everyone with me,...)...

So thus....

Person Number
1 - shook hands with none.
2- Shook hands with 9 (1 shake)
3 Shook with 9 and 8 (2 shakes)
4 - 9, 8 7 (3 )
5 9, 8, 7, 6 (4)
6 - 9, 8, 7, 5 and 10 (5)
7 - 9, 8, 6, 5, 4, 10 (6)
8 - 9, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 10 (7)
9 - 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 10 (8)

These give the 9 different answers jack wanted....
However for this to work and Jack being a guest . he needs to shake hands with 4 different people to be able to ensure the answers he gets are different... Please note you said he RECIEVES different answer.. meaning his is the same as anothers.... ie 4...

As for which one is his wife... well she can only be person 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 as they never shook with him (number 10) so she would have shook either none, 1, 2, 3 or 4....

Cant get any further sorry...

So im guessing that its a trick question and it was none as she was an amputee...

F x

Ahhhh hold on....

People nine and one were together as they did not shake...

So she cannot be person one.... so she did shake at least one hand...

work that backwards in that person 8 could only be with person one or two and two is already eliminated.. 8 must be married to two...

and so on and so on untill person 5 is left and must be married to person 10 (jack)

so therefore she shook 4 peoples hands !!!

Ta Daaaaaa

F x

Correct Fairie.

Here's my (rather long-winded) explanation:

Because, obviously, no person shook hands with himself or herself, or with his or her partner, nobody shook hands with more than eight other people. And since nine people shook hands with different numbers of people, these numbers must be 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

The person who shook 8 hands, shook hands with all other persons (who therefore shook each at least 1 hand), except with his or her partner. Therefore, the partner of the person who shook 8 hands, must be the person who shook 0 hands.

The person who shook 7 hands, shook hands with all other persons (who therefore shook each at least 2 hands), except with his or her partner and the person who shook 0 hands. Therefore, the partner of the person who shook 7 hands, must be the person who shook 1 hand.

The person who shook 6 hands, shook hands with all other persons (who therefore shook each at least 3 hands), except with his or her partner and the persons who shook 1 and 0 hands. Therefore, the partner of the person who shook 6 hands, must be the person who shook 2 hands.

The person who shook 5 hands, shook hands with all other persons (who therefore shook each at least 4 hands), except with his or her partner and the persons who shook 2, 1, and 0 hands. Therefore, the partner of the person who shook 5 hands, must be the person who shook 3 hands.

The only person left, is the one who shook 4 hands, which must be Jack's wife, so the answer is: Jack's wife shook 4 hands.

Hurrah .... I did go about it a long way... lol... but the mathematical one lol...

I dont have one to give though... so its open to anyone who wants to jump in....

FairieSnuff wrote:I dont have one to give though... so its open to anyone who wants to jump in....

You know when you've been bingoed lol .

Sorry for those that don't like maths-related riddles, but this next riddle is errmm, well ...... maths-related

Consider the following (fictional) facts:
1. 1% of women at age forty who participate in routine screening have breast cancer.
2. 80% of women with breast cancer will get positive mammographies.
3. 9.6% of women without breast cancer will also get positive mammographies.

Question: A woman in this age group had a positive mammography in a routine screening. What is the probability that she actually has breast cancer?

Apparently, most doctors get the same wrong answer on this problem - usually, only around 15% of doctors get it right. Let's see how you do - I'm sure you're all far more intelligent than Doctor Jones from down the road ............. .

7

On a test sample of 100000 women:
1% have it (1000)
Of those, 80% are told they have it (800), and the remainder is told otherwise (200)

Of those that do not (99000):
9..6% (9504) get told that they have it, when they don't. The remainder can be ignored

Of those actually told they have breast cancer, (800+9504=10304), only 8.42% (800/9504) really do have it.

Then again, I might be wrong.

Ian The Magic-Ian wrote:7

close - but not quite

DenmarkKilo wrote: only 8.42% (800/9504) really do have it.

correct so far, but your 800/9504 is wrong .

moonbeam wrote:

Ian The Magic-Ian wrote:7

close - but not quite

DenmarkKilo wrote: only 8.42% (800/9504) really do have it.

correct so far, but your 800/9504 is wrong .

should it be 800/10304, instead of 800/9504?

84.2 have it .... I dunno.

Blapsing_Beard wrote:

moonbeam wrote:

Ian The Magic-Ian wrote:7

close - but not quite

DenmarkKilo wrote: only 8.42% (800/9504) really do have it.

correct so far, but your 800/9504 is wrong .

should it be 800/10304, instead of 800/9504?

Yes. I meant it to be a proportion of the total number of people told it, not comparing those that do to those that don't.
800/10304 would be more correct. Which is 7.8% (rounded up). I had quite a late night last night...

Then again, I could still be wrong...

looking over it seems correct but we should wait for confirmation