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Saturday, January 3, 2015

Swapping Art

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"Four drawings by Max Ernst are worth as much as five sketches by Magritte, do you agree?" asked Giorgio Parconi, an Italian art dealer. He was tired of arguing over this.

"D'accord!" agreed Cesar Blanchard, who was the director of a Parisian art gallery.

"And we all agree that two sketches by Magritte plus one drawing by Ernst are worth as much as two paintings by Bacon. Right?"

"Bon," nodded the frenchman.

"So, I'm offering you four drawings by Ernst plus one sketch by Magritte, and in return you give me three sketches by Magritte and two paintings by Bacon. It's perfectly fair, isn't it?"

Blanchard remained silent, he had the feeling that something was wrong.

Was the Italian dealer offering a fair swap?

Swapping Art Puzzle Solution

The swap is unfair. If we abbreviate with an E the drawings by Ernst, an M for Magritte's sketches, and a B for Bacon's paintings, we can rewrite the equations as stated by the Italian dealer as:
  1. EEEE = MMMMM (both dealers agreed on this)
  2. MME = BB (again, both dealers agreed on this too)
  3. MMMBB = EEEEM (the French dealer wasn't sure of this)
Now, if for the 3rd equation we substitute BB with MME (from equation 2), we'll have a 4th equation: MMMMME = EEEEM. But the 1st equation states that MMMMM = EEEE, so it is possible to cancel out, in equation 4, MMMMM on the left and EEEE on the right. This would leave us with the equation E = M, which does not fit with equation 1, where E is obviously greater than M.


The problem gives us 3 equations:
    1. 4x = 5y
    2. 2y + x = 2z
    3. 3y + 2z = 4x + y

Equation 2. can be rewritten as:
    4. x = -2y + 2z

Equation 3. can be rewritten as:
    5. 4x = 2y + 2z

Adding equations 4. and 5. gives us:
    6. 5x = 4z

Combining 1. and 6., we get:
    7. 4x = 5y = (16/5)z

If we convert the offer (3.) in terms of y, we get:
    8. 3y + 2(25/16)y = 5y + y
    ie 3y + (25/8)y = 6y
    ie 6.125y = 6y

The last equation is not absolutely true, which proves the swap is unfair.