Three liberals collect a pile of bananas and go to sleep. Each liberal wakes up, eats a banana and hides a third of the remaining pile. They are left with two bananas each in the morning. How many bananas were in the pile?
If the pile starts with 25 bananas:
The first liberal eats one then there are 24; hide 1/3 leaving 16.
(16 – 1) 2/3 = 10
(10 – 1) 2/3 = 6 or 2 each
The pile started with 25 bananas which was the correct guess.
Ape Town 