Three men in a cafe order a meal the total cost of which is $15. They each contribute $5. The waiter takes the money to the chef who recognises the three as friends and asks the waiter to return $5 to the men.
The waiter is not only poor at mathematics but dishonest and instead of going to the trouble of splitting the $5 between the three he simply gives them $1 each and pockets the remaining $2 for himself.
Now, each of the men effectively paid $4, the total paid is therefore $12. Add the $2 in the waiters pocket and this comes to $14. Where has the other $1 gone from the original $15?
What does man love more than life, and hate more than death or mortal strife; that which satisfied men want; the poor have, and the rich require; the miser spends, the spendthrift saves, and all men carry to their graves?
Seven Robbers robbed a bank and hide the coins in a lonely place.
They decide to divide the money equally the next morning. Two greedy robbers decided to cheat the others and reach the place at night. They equally divided the coins between them, one coin left. So they called another robber and then they decided to divide equally among the three. Sadly again one coin left. The same thing happened to the 4th 5th and the 6th robber.
However, when the 7th robber reached in the morning, they can divide the coins equally.
In 2011, people playing Foldit, an online puzzle game about protein folding, resolved the structure of an enzyme that causes an Aids-like disease in monkeys. Researchers had been working on the problem for 13 years. The gamers solved it in three weeks.