Everyone has it. Those who have it least don’t know that they have it. Those who have it most wish they had less of it, but not too little or none at all.
Age. Young children don’t even know their age and extremely old folks wish they could turn back the hands of time, but not so much that they’re too young or they no longer have an age at all.
A similar problem can be found in L.A. Graham’s Ingenious Mathematical Problems and Methods with a range of 1 to 9, but the principle remains the same – the numbers with the smallest difference produce the largest product. You start out with the highest two digits, 7 and 6, then attach 5 and 4, putting the smaller of the two digits with the larger number, giving you 74 and 65. The next two highest digits are 3 and 2, giving you 742 and 653. Finally, you add the 1 to the lower number. Page 80 has the details of that solution.
A deck of cards. You put the cards on the table to play, and you cut the cards to mix them up, but you don’t eat them. Flowers is another possible answer.
Aiden and Sofia were debating a major purchase of candy. They calculated that they could get three bags of jelly beans and two bags of chocolate for 24 cents, which was just under their limit of 25 cents. They found they could also get four bags of chocolate and two bags of jelly beans for the same 24 cents. How much did each bag of candy cost?
