An old bedouin died leaving 3 sons and 35 camels. Amongst his last wills, he wanted that his 3 inheritors shared the camels, the following way: one half to the older son, one third to the next son and one nineth to the youngest son. The sons, however, could not agree with that strange division (1/2=17.5, 1/3=11.67 and 1/9=3.89). None of them wanted to give up of a bit of his share, even though they wanted to follow the will of their father.

Then Beremiz Samir, "the man who counted", arrived, and said he wanted to try to solve that problem, if he could add his own camel to those 35 to be shared by the sons. The inheritors agreed, of course.

Then Beremiz divided the camels (now 36) the following way: one half to the older son (36/2=18), one third to the next son (36/3=12) and one nineth to the youngest son (36/9=4). All of then became very satisfied with that result, and even the wise Beremiz, that got another extra camel, besides that one of his own (18+12+4+2=36)!

"The Man Who Counted: A Collection of Mathematical Adventures", by Malba Tahan (a brazilian writer)

Pardom me for the terrible translation!

Fernando