A Problem of Family Relations

Mathematical Puzzle

Apply your calculative skills to find out the answer to this maths puzzle.

Every man or woman alive today had 2 parents, 4 grand-parents, 8 great-grand parents, 16 great-great-grand parents, 32 great, great, great grand parents and so on.

Let us take the case of Ram. Two generations ago Ran had 2 x 2 or 2², or 4 ancestors. Three generations ago he had 2 x 2 x 2 or 2³or 8 ancestors. For generations ago he had 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 or 2⁴or 16 ancestors.

Assuming that there are 20 years t o a generation, can you tell 400 years back how many ancestors did Ram have?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 17:30 and is filed under Puzzles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “A Problem of Family Relations”

divya on February 24th, 2010 at 17:30

since 400 years..so the no of generations would be 20:
den no of ancestors would be 2^20=45056

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