Where did the money go? The Weekly Puzzle by Dilip D’Souza

Who attended a distant wedding, who didn’t? And how did that affect who got what, in keeping with an eccentric movie star’s will?

When the famous filmstar Julie Hepburn died, she left her estate to be divided between her three daughters, Judy, Alia and Revathi (not necessarily in chronological order). But the provisions in her will were strange indeed.

(Shutterstock)

The two elder daughters were to get 40% each of her wealth, with the remainder (20%) going to the youngest. But this only applied if both her elder daughters attended the wedding of Julie’s favourite niece, Sofia, in Sofia, Bulgaria, a month after Julie’s death. If either of them missed the wedding, they would each get only 30% of her estate, with the remaining 40% going to the youngest.

Since movie buffs around the world were captivated by this tale of strange inheritance, Alia held a press conference after the division was done. “You should be able to guess how the division went, guys,” she said to the assembled journalists, none of whom knew the chronological order of Julie’s three daughters.

One reporter put up her hand and asked: “Were you at Sofia’s wedding in Sofia? That might help us figure this out.”

“Well,” said Alia, “if I answered you, you would know immediately! So I won’t.”

Questions: Even if she won’t answer, can you? Was Alia at Sofia’s wedding? Also, is Alia the youngest daughter?

Scroll down for the answers.

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Answers:

This one’s a tangle of logic. First, let’s see if Alia can be the youngest daughter. If she is the youngest, neither her presence nor absence in Sofia makes a difference to the inheritance, so whatever her answer to the question, it tells us nothing. Thus Alia cannot be the youngest; she must be one of the older two.

Now if she was in Sofia for Sofia, we would still have no way of knowing how the estate was divided, because both elder daughters had to be there to get their 40% share. And we don’t know if the other of the two older daughters was there.

But what if Alia did not go to Sofia for Sofia’s wedding? Then we would know for sure that both older daughters were not there. Therefore Alia did not go to Sofia, and Julie’s wealth was divided thus: 40% to the youngest and 30% each to Alia and Julie’s other older daughter.