A riddle reportedly used during interviews for Harvard University has stumped 90 percent of people who try it.
The image, shared on social media, shows the university’s letterhead with a math problem written in red and black ink.
The question is, “If there are seven men with seven wives and each man and wife have seven children, what is the total number of people?”
But unlike most riddles, this one has two answers.
The image shows what people claim is part of the Harvard University interview process.
The interview puzzle first hit the internet in 2021, but has since resurfaced online to stump another group of players who have shared different answers.
Responses ranged from 21 people to 448, with one person even claiming the response could be much higher, citing 700 people, though they did not explain their reasoning.
“This is all a word game,” one person commented on the post. “There are multiple answers and none of them are wrong unless you do the math wrong.”
One user said it all depends on how you interpret the question: if every man has one wife, the correct answer would be 63, but if you look at it as if every man has seven wives, the answer is 392.
“This is ambiguous, and I guess that’s the point,” one user said, adding: “But let’s assume there are only seven couples (seven men and seven wives), which equals 14 people.
‘Each couple had seven children, so 7×7 = 49 children. If we add them up, we have 63 people.’
Assuming each man has seven wives, to get 399 people, you would multiply seven by seven to get 49 wives and add that number to seven men.
So if each of the 49 wives has seven children, that’s 343 and if each man has seven children, that’s 49, which is 392 people.
Math puzzles are important because they encourage people to analyze information and consider the answer from different points of view.
It reveals how they break problems down into smaller, more manageable steps and whether they use innovative thinking.
But if you were one of the many people who got it wrong, you should rest assured that you are not alone.
It is also unclear whether the riddle came directly from Harvard. DailyMail.com has contacted the university.
