Article 585 of sci.physics: Path: puukko!santra!tut!enea!mcvax!uunet!husc6!sri-unix!ctnews!andrew!RP%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU From: RP%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Newsgroups: sci.physics Subject: Mathematical Puzzle] Message-ID: <898@sri-arpa.ARPA> Date: 17 Mar 88 11:05:00 GMT Lines: 18 From: Richard Pavelle The following puzzle circulated over various mailing lists 10 years ago. I am sending it to Physics because many readers have not seen it and it is very difficult to solve. But my real question is whether anyone can tell me the background of this problem? Enjoy............ There are two integers each between 1 and 100. P knows their product, S knows their sum. Obviously, if they told each other the sum and product, they could figure out what the integers were. Instead, they have the following conversation: P: I don't know what the numbers are. S: I knew you didn't. Neither do I. P: Oh! Now I know. S: Oh! So do I. What are the two integers? 