Question: Fatima found that the profit earned by the Bala dosa stall today is a three-digit number. She also noticed that the middle digit is half of the leftmost digit, while the rightmost digit is three times the middle digit. She then randomly interchanged the digits and obtained a different number. This number was more than the original number by 198.
What was the middle digit of the profit amount?
Explanation:
From the given conditions :
Considering the three-digit number to be a b c.
With the given conditions :
a = 2b, c = 3b.
Hence the number is of the form : 2b b 3b.
Since all three of the values must be less than 10 and non-negative:
This takes values : b = 1, b = 2, b = 3.
Hence the possible numbers are : (213, 426, 639) :
The interchanged number must be greater than the original by 198.
Hence the different rearrangements for the three numbers are :
213 : (312, 321, 132, 123, 231).
426 : (462, 624, 642, 246, 264)
639 : ( 693, 963, 936, 396, 369)
The only possible value which is higher than the original by 198 is :
(426, 624).
The middle digit is 2.