The Missing Dollar Paradox
Three ladies go to a restaurant for a meal. They receive a bill for $30. They each put $10 on the table, which the waiter collects and takes to the till. The cashier informs the waiter that the bill should only have been for $25 and returns $5 to the waiter in single dollar bills. On the way back to the table the waiter realizes that he cannot divide the bills equally among the ladies.
Since they don’t know the total of the revised bill, he decides to put $2 in his own pocket and give each of the ladies $1.
Now, each of the ladies paid $9. Three times 9 is $27. The waiter has $2 in his pocket. Two plus 27 is $29. The ladies originally handed over $30.
Where is the missing dollar?
Explain the answer as CLEARLY and BRIEFLY as you can as a Reply to this post during class today.
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Counterintuitive Fall 2023 
The error lies in adding the $2 kept by the waiter to the $27 paid by the ladies. The correct way to look at it is that the waiter initially took $25 to the till, and $2 went into his pocket, making up the total $27. The remaining $3 is what was returned to the ladies. Therefore, there is no missing dollar; it’s a matter of properly accounting for the $30 initially paid by the ladies.
There is no missing dollar
He probably kept it in his pocket too
The ladies would have essentially paid 9 dollars for the meal when the dollar was returned to each of them. But instead of the meal being 25, because there was two dollars never returned and the waiter had it ,making the meal 27 dollars and the final 3 dollars were with the women, so all the money is accounted for. 25 for the bill, 3 for the women, and two to the waiter
the missing money is kept by the waiter.
The missing dollar comes from the bellhop itself. If the meal costs 25$ and the bellhop receives 5$ back but only gives back three that means the 2$ pocketed is added to the 25$ received by the restaurant. As the ladies receive those 3$ it accounts for the full 30.
The bill was $25 but they gave $30 so the waiter got back $5 he took two and gave back one so either the waiter took 3 and not 2 without knowing or the dollar fell.
The missing dollar is stuck to one of the other dollars which was either kept or given back to one of the ladies.
There is no missing dollar
If the bill was 25$ and the waiter gave back 3$ then they would have paid 28$ because 25$ + the 3$ the waiter gave back to each of the ladies and then the waiter took 2$ which in total equals 30$ in total.
I’m not sure but maybe she misplaced her dollar.
There is no missing dollar. $3 were given back to each of the ladies, the meal was $25, and the waiter kept $2. Which adds to $30.
the dollar was misplaced
$25 dollars for the bill, $2 kept in the pocket by the waiter, and $3 dollars given back to the ladies. There’s no missing dollar.