A riddle

[riddler]

Given my account name, I found it only fair to give you guys a nice little riddle.

I should warn you ahead, this can be a tough one, it's slightly mathematical, and there are some rules.

1. You must be absolutely 100% sure you got the answer right.
2.You may tell the answer here, but I'll need motives, which I prefer you pm. You can put 'em in here, but why spoil for others?
3. As I said, 1 answer is possible, and 1 only.



Here's the story;

A mailman sees a woman outside in one of the streets he's been delivering mail for years. The lady spends a lot of time outside, so the two occasionally talk.

This time, the mailman asks the woman; "I know you have 3 daughters, but how old are they?"

The woman sees this as an opportunity to mess with the mailman's mind, and says; "When you multiply all their ages with each other, you get 36."(That being 'age 1 X age 2 X age 3')

The mailman thinks for a few seconds and says; "Well, that's unfair, there's way to many possibilities for 36, don't you have another clue?"

To which the woman replies; "When you add all ages to each other, you get our house number." ('age 1 + age 2 + age 3')

This, as some of you will understand, got the mailman thinking for a few minutes. "I still don't get it."he said, with eyes pleading for a final clue.

The woman gave in and said; "The oldest one plays Violin."



Now, all 3 clues were enough for the mailman to fix this problem, are you up to the task?

[zAkAtAk]

HEY DON'T TAKE MY THING!

[riddler]

Your thing? Do explain?

[zAkAtAk]

pogotribe.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=forumgames&action=display&thread=446

[riddler]

So, should I put this in there and request a delete topic thingy?

[nickgreyden]

Logic Flaw: Incomplete Problem

From first clue (and sums for second clue)

1 1 36 sum 38
1 2 18 sum 21
1 3 12 sum 16
1 4 9 sum 14
1 6 6 sum 13
2 2 9 sum 13
2 3 6 sum 11
3 3 4 sum 10

Clue 2: Logic Flaw
Any one of those sums could be an address. So this is no help at all. (Possibly)

Clue 3: Logic Flaw
Even among twins you always know which one was born first, therefore you could have an oldest twin by only a few minutes. Also you could have one child born Jan 15 another born Dec 15 and the current day is Dec 20 yielding two children with same whole number ages the same. Skipping all the technical things however and assuming you wish to have a cut and dry oldest, you have the following options.

1 1 36 sum 38
1 2 18 sum 21
1 3 12 sum 16
1 4 9 sum 14
2 2 9 sum 13
2 3 6 sum 11
3 3 4 sum 10

Now once again this takes assumtion. The only way this could possibly[/i] work is if this mailman was quick on his feet and good at math. The only possible solution to this riddle which has been posed which calls for multiple speculations on the part of the person figuring it out is this.

Clue 1: product of ages = 36 so we have the list again
1 1 36 sum 38
1 2 18 sum 21
1 3 12 sum 16
1 4 9 sum 14
1 6 6 sum 13
2 2 9 sum 13
2 3 6 sum 11
3 3 4 sum 10

Clue 2: The mailman knows this list (even though I had to set down and figure it up) and sees all the possibilities. So he asks for clue 2. After doing so, the mailman still[/i] is unsure of the ages because he can cross reference his list in his head with the known address across the street and still not have a definite answer meaning the address must have appeared two or more times in the above list. This happens only once.
1 6 6 sum 13
2 2 9 sum 13

Clue 3: The oldest
This makes the speculation that the riddle is meant to not have two of the highest number denoting persons of the same age... which is retarded but ok. As a result, you can once again remove the 1 6 6 from the list leaving the ages 2 2 9 as the only possible solution to this problem. However, as I have said, this is absolutely the only way to do this and speculation on what is meant and what is implied abound in this solve... not a good thing when words hold great meaning.

[zAkAtAk]

I just now looked at the problem.

You might want to work on the wording of your problems more before you have people solve them.