A Question of Age

 A Question of Age

              Last winter I was in the United Kingdom. Travelling by train from London to Manchester, I had for company two middle- aged Englishmen who were seated opposite to me. Naturally, they did not speak to me _ because we hadn’t been introduced, but I could not help overhearing their conversation.

‘How old is Tracy, I wonder? ‘One asked the other ‘Tracy!’ the other replied “Let me see – eighteen years ago he was three times as old as his son’. 

‘But now, it appears, he is only twice as old as his son’ said the former.

 I tried to guess Tracy’s age, and his son’s age. What do you think my solution was?

Answer: 

If the son is x years old then the father is 2x years old. Eighteen years ago they were both eighteen years younger.

The Father was 2 x – 18 and the son x -18.

We know that then the father was three times as old as the son:

3(x – 18) 2x – 18

When we solve this equation, we will find that x= 36. The son is 36 and the father 72.