document.write( "Question 1063777: After death of Diophantus (about 290 A.D.) a famous mathematician, someone described his life as a puzzle.
\n" ); document.write( "He was a boy for 1/6 of his life. After 1/12 more, he acquired a beard, after another 1/7, he married. 5th year after his marriage, his son was born. The son lived half as many as his father. Diophantus died 4 years after his son. How old was Diophantus when he died? \n" ); document.write( "

Algebra.Com's Answer #678993 by ikleyn(52790) $\"\"$ $\"About$

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\n" ); document.write( "After death of Diophantus (about 290 A.D.) a famous mathematician, someone described his life as a puzzle.
\n" ); document.write( "He was a boy for 1/6 of his life. After 1/12 more, he acquired a beard, after another 1/7, he married. 5th year after his marriage,
\n" ); document.write( "his son was born. The son lived half as many as his father. Diophantus died 4 years after his son. How old was Diophantus when he died?
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\n" ); document.write( "\n" ); document.write( "Answer. D. was 84 years old when he died.\r
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document.write( "It is not difficult problem.\r\n" );
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document.write( "Moving along of his timescale, we get the equation\r\n" );
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document.write( " +  +  + 5 +  + 4 = x,\r\n" );
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document.write( "Where \"x\" is an unknown D.'s age when he died.\r\n" );
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document.write( "Multiply both sides by the common denominator, which is 84 = 12*7.\r\n" );
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document.write( "Simplify and solve for \"x\". You will get x = 84.\r\n" );
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\n" ); document.write( "\n" ); document.write( "Solved.\r
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\n" ); document.write( "\n" ); document.write( "CHECK. Quotation from the source http://www.storyofmathematics.com/hellenistic_diophantus.html\r
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\n" ); document.write( "\n" ); document.write( "One of the problems in a later 5th Century Greek anthology of number games is sometimes considered to be Diophantus’ epitaph:\r
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\n" ); document.write( "\n" ); document.write( "“Here lies Diophantus.
\n" ); document.write( "God gave him his boyhood one-sixth of his life;
\n" ); document.write( "One twelfth more as youth while whiskers grew rife;
\n" ); document.write( "And then yet one-seventh ‘ere marriage begun.
\n" ); document.write( "In five years there came a bouncing new son;
\n" ); document.write( "Alas, the dear child of master and sage,
\n" ); document.write( "After attaining half the measure of his father's life, chill fate took him.
\n" ); document.write( "After consoling his fate by the science of numbers for four years, he ended his life.”\r
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\n" ); document.write( "\n" ); document.write( "The puzzle implies that Diophantus lived to be about 84 years old (although its biographical accuracy is uncertain).\r
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\n" ); document.write( "\n" ); document.write( "CONFIRMATION. This article of Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diophantus\r
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\n" ); document.write( "\n" ); document.write( "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diophantus\r
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