The five Spanish brigands, Alfonso, Benito, Carlos, Diego, and Esteban, were counting their spoils after a raid when it was found that they had captured altogether exactly $200$ doubloons. One of the band pointed out that if Alfonso had twelve times as much, Benito three times as much, Carlos the same amount, Diego half as much, and Esteban one-third as much, they would still have altogether just $200$ doubloons. How many doubloons had each?
There are a good many equally correct answers to this question. Here is one of them:
\[\begin{array}{rrcrcr} A&6&\times&12&=&72\\ B&12&\times&3&=&36\\ C&17&\times&1&=&17\\ D&120&\times&\frac 12&=&60\\ E&45&\times&\frac 13&=&15\\ &200&&&&200 \end{array}\]
The puzzle is to discover exactly how many different answers there are, it is understood that every man had something and that there is to be no fractional money—only doubloons in every case.
This problem, worded somewhat differently, was propounded by Tartaglia (died 1557), and he flattered himself that he had found one solution; but a French mathematician of note (M.A. Labosne), in a recent work, says that his readers will be astonished when he assures them that there are $6,639$ different correct answers to the question. Is this so? How many answers are there?
Solutions: 1
Definitions: 1
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