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40 boys and 28 girls stand in a circle, hand in hand, all facing inward. Exactly 18 boys give their right hand to a girl. How many boys give their left hand to a girl?

 

 

If a boy gives his right hand to a girl then looking from the middle of the circle the girl is on the left.     

So from the centre of the cirle the pairs look like    GB (clockwise)

 

 So we have  18 pairs of   (GB)    these pairs must be kept together.         [What I need to determine is how many  BG there will be]

 

Now there are 22 boys and 10 girls not accounted for although it would actually make no difference at all how many more children that there were.These children can be slotted in anywhere in the circle SO LONG AS for each slot postion the boys go first and the girls go second ( BG clockwise). It does not matter how many boys or girls get slotted in between each pair as long as they all get slotted in.  

 

Between each of the original  GB couples, who can be inbetween

 

GB                           nothing                           GB                BG will be together  (once)        

GB                          all boys                            GB                BG will be to together once at end

GB                           all girls                            GB                 BG will be together once at the beginning

GB        some boys followed by some girls     GB                 BG will be together once in the middle.

 

 

So no matter where the extra kids are sloted in (so long as the boys first then girls after rule is followed) there will be exactly ONE BG combination between each of the original pairs. HENCE if there are exactly 18 GB combinations there will also be exactly 18 BG combinations.

 

i.e.

If exactly 18 boys give their right hand to a girl THEN exactly 18 boys will give their left hand to a girl.  

Ther fact that there is 22 extra boys and 10 extra girls (above the 18 original pairs) is irrelevant.

 

CREDITS:

Tetre showed me this site:   https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20150213031605AAcDi2g   (Thanks Tetre laugh  )

Initially I had a real problem working out the logic but I think my answer is very similar to the second answer given.

Mar 10, 2019

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