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Today Puzzle #699

Puzzle No. 699 – Wednesday 18 March

At a meeting of coin collectors, every person has a collection of ten and twenty pence coins. Each person’s coins add to give a total of one pound. If no two people brought the same combination of 10p and 20p coins, what is the largest possible number of people at the meeting?

Today’s #PuzzleForToday has been set by Dr Steve Humble from Newcastle University

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There could be 4 coin collectors at the meeting with a combination of 10p and 20p coins. There could be six at the meeting if we count the possibly that a coin collector does not have one of the types of coins.

Details of a possible solution.

10X + 20Y = 100

Hence we can write X = 10 – 2Y and look for integer solutions

(Y can take integer values of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

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