On the See- Saw

              Some days back, walking through the park, I saw a little girl trying to play the see- saw all by herself. It takes two to see- saw, but here was a girl who was a girl who was ingenious enough to try and see- saw on her own.

              I saw her tying a number of bricks to one end of the plank to balance her weight at the other. 

              I curiously noted that she just balanced against sixteen bricks. When these were fixed to the short end of the plank and I also noticed that if she were to fix them to the long end of the plank, she only needed eleven as balance.

              I wondered what the girl’s weight. The brick, I could guess weighed equal to a three quarter brick and three quarter of a pound.

            Can you figure it out?  

Answer:    A brick weighed 3 Ibs. Therefore, 16 bricks weighed 48 Ibs and 11 bricks 33 Ibs. Multiplying 48 by 33 and taking the square root we get 39.79. The girl’s weight must have been about 39.79 Ibs.