This seemingly simple puzzle has stumped many people.
And it has caused a lot of frustrated head-scratching.
Apparently, it’s so mind-boggling that even Harvard students struggle to get it right, according to psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast and Slow.
He states that more than half of students at leading universities get it wrong.
Do you think you know the answer?
You buy a bat and a ball for £1.10.
The bat costs exactly one pound more than the ball.
How much is the ball?
Do you think you know?
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Well done if you got 5p.
……………
But how did you work it out?
Many people respond by saying that the ball must cost 10p. Although this response naturally springs to mind, it is incorrect. If the ball costs 10p and the bat costs £1 more than the ball, then the bat would cost £1.10 – a grand total of £1.20. The correct answer to this riddle is that the ball costs 5p and the bat costs £1 more — £1.05 – a total of £1.10.
According to psychologists, people often substitute difficult problems with simpler ones to quickly solve them. In this case, people seem to unconsciously substitute the ‘more than’ statement in the problem (the bat costs £1 more than the ball) with a statement (the bat costs £1). This makes the sum easier to work with – if a ball and bat cost £1.10 and the bat costs £1, then the ball must cost 10p. However it’s not the answer.
