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Five ways to weigh x

One old problem, solved five ways. A scribe in Egypt and mathematicians in India and Baghdad solved problems like it, centuries apart and without our symbols.

From the Rhind papyrus, problem 26

A heap and a quarter of it, added together, make 15. How big is the heap?

The heap and its quarter on one pan, 15 blocks on the other. The scale is level.

The two problems before it, 24 and 25, ask the same about a heap and its seventh making 19 and a heap and its half making 16. Their answers are fractions, 16⅝ and 10⅔, so we weigh problem 26, which comes out whole.