Importance of Simplicity
2005.07.12 14:40

First of all this story is not my invention. I read in a textbook while I was looking for a teaching material 17 years ago.
One farmer who has eleven cattles needed to give them to his three sons in his leaving. He said, 'I give a half to my eldest son and one-third to my second son and one-twelfth to my youngest son. Then he left.
Sons were in trouble sharing their father's cattles.
One traveller who carries one cattle run into them and insisted he can settle the problem. Then he added his cattles to the sum of twelve, then he alloted according to their father's saying - 1/2=6, 1/3=4, 1/12=1
Sons are so glad and asked him what to want. Traveller just asked is the cattle he added and left somewhere.
The lesson we have to learn from this fable must be somthing like the importance to accept someone even unknown to us. But believe me this was very dangerous. In this real world, he would request more than one cattle he added to allot. Three sons might have to give away one cattle each has to the traveller.
The lessons from this fable is what is to blame is their father - instead of saying such a riddle all he had to say is ' I give 6 cattles to my eldest and 4 cattles to my second and 1 to youngest. He didn't have to use unneseccarily difficult formula to explain simpler matters - that's the lesson.