Bhaskara's broken necklace of pearls
While a young woman is wearing it, her pearl necklace breaks. A sixth of the pearls fall to the floor, a fifth land on the bed, a third are caught and saved by the woman herself, and a tenth are snatched up by her lover. Six pearls remain strung on the necklace. How many pearls made up the whole necklace?
Reveal the answer
30 pearls. Check it: 1/6, 1/5, 1/3 and 1/10 of 30 are 5, 6, 10 and 3 — totaling 24, leaving exactly 6 on the string. It's one of the versified word problems the medieval Indian mathematician Bhaskara II addressed to his daughter in Lilavati (1150 CE), one of the most celebrated texts in the history of mathematics.
— Bhaskara II, Lilavati — Chapter on fractions (Bhinna Ganita), c. 1150 CE