i am a fan of word problems. i think they are challenging and i love having to use my brain to solve them.

i enjoy reading ieee potenials and get a bunch if magazines to read in the mail, which i usually don't read until i am on the toilet. anyhow, while on the toilet i enjoy reading and thinking about puzzles.

life's little moments

here's gamesman's problem 4 from the october/november ieee student potenials.

Paul was born in the 20th century. In 2000, his age was the sum of the digits in the year of his birth. How old was he?

Solve this little riddle =)

I'll post the answer shortly, but I want to give people a chance to try the problem out. Think mathematics, that's your only hint.

congrats to all those who said 19. but give yourself a special pat on the back if you solved this without guessing (using your mathematics).

Here is the mathematical solution, which looks very similar to Professor's solution. Congrats =)

Paul was born in the year 1900 + 10x + y, where x and y are integers, 9 or lower. In the year 2000 his age was

2000 - (1900 + 10x + y) = 1 + 9 + x + y

Therefore y = (90 - 11x) / 2

Trying even values of x from 0 to 8 shows that x = 8 and y = 1. So Paul's age in the year 2000 was 19.