Question

Fred brings home 100 lbs of potatoes, which (being purely mathematical potatoes) consist of 99 percent water. he then leaves them outside overnight so that they consist of 98 percent water. what is their new weight?

Answer 1

The answer to this paradoxical question is 50 pounds. To begin, we see that the ratio of water to non-water is 99:1, leading to a weight of 100 pounds. After one day, the potatoes have a water/non-water ratio of 98:2, or 49:1. To keep the ratios similar, we see that the weight has now decreased to 50 pounds.