Puzzle guide
How Many Steps? A Classic Monk Puzzle
A preserved and rewritten arithmetic brain teaser from the former Crafty Puzzles blog.
A monk climbs to the middle step of a staircase. He then climbs 8 steps, walks down 12, climbs 1, and finally reaches the top by taking 9 paces of 3 steps each.
Reveal the working
Let the staircase contain n steps. The monk starts at n/2, then moves +8 −12 +1 and finally +27 to reach n. Therefore n/2 +24 = n, so n = 48.
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