# Where is Jennifer's husband?

Jennifer is 21 years older than her son Douglas. 6 years from now, Jennifer will be 5 times as old as Douglas.

Question: Where is Jennifer's husband most likely to be right now?

• This really is more of a joke than a puzzle. – xnor Mar 18 '15 at 21:04
• @xnor Well, it does have a clear solution as to the ages of Jennifer and Douglas. And in the original version, there was a "where is he most likely to be?" disclaimer, which cuts out a lot of the nitpicks from the two joke answers below. – Rand al'Thor Mar 19 '15 at 0:37
• Jennifer's husband is fishing in Canada. (with apologies to Raymond Smullyan) – David Mar 19 '15 at 2:14
• Perhaps the puzzle could be improved by changing the final question to "Where is Douglas's father?" – R.. Mar 19 '15 at 5:47
• The original question was not phrased well. I had edited it to resolve that, not realizing the importance of the "most likely" part. I've edited again, restoring that key aspect of the question. :) – JakeRobb Mar 19 '15 at 14:18

Let's define $J$=Jennifer and $D$=Douglas.
The problem can be rewritten as:

$J=D+21$
$J+6=5(D+6)$

According to my math, Douglas is $D=(-\frac{3}{4})$ years old, which means $-9$ months. Pregnancy lasts for nine months, so Jennifer's husband is in the bed with her right now.

• That's actually the milk man.. – blakeoft Mar 18 '15 at 18:18
• Actually, you can't know yet whether Douglas is a male or a female... – leoll2 Mar 18 '15 at 18:21
• actually they may not be in bed. But he's most probably inside her – Novarg Mar 18 '15 at 19:05
• @leoll2 - "Actually, you can't know yet whether Douglas is a male or a female". Yes, and I can imagine some feminist visiting this post and calling all of us "male chauvinist pigs". :P – User Anonymous Mar 19 '15 at 5:06
• To be nitpicky, human gestation averages 280 days. The number of days in 9 months is between 273 and 276, depending on which month you start counting from, so we can really only say Jennifer's husband will be in bed with her - on average - within the next 7 days. And even if you massaged the numbers to pinpoint the day, you can't be sure they are in bed right now, you could be a few hours off due to rounding errors. – Michael Mar 19 '15 at 16:36

Jennifer's husband is busy in business meetings, while Douglas's dad is with Jennifer.

• I was wondering when someone was going to give this kind of amswer, ahahah – Marco Bonelli Mar 19 '15 at 13:04

As mentioned in leoll2's answer above, the Maths part of the question is the simultaneous solution of the two equations which relate the respective ages of Jennifer and Douglas:

$$J=D+21$$ $$J+6=5(D+6)$$

These provide the answer $D = -3/4$ years, or roughly $-9$ months, which could lead one to conclude what leoll2 concluded.

However,

1) It is not necessary that Jennifer's husband must have necessarily fathered Douglas. (No offence meant, I only mean it is not specified in the puzzle.)

2) Biologically, pregnancy doesn't always have to last 9 months. So, one can not deny the possibility of Douglas being born after 8 and a half months instead of nine.

So, Jennifer's husband could be anywhere in this world, or could even be dead. Particularly, if he hasn't fathered Douglas, and pregnancy did last exactly 9 months, then he must not be around at the time of conceiving (stark opposite conclusion from the same data).

This is not a well designed puzzle. Sorry for being a killjoy :(

• well you're no fun – basher Mar 18 '15 at 19:44
• @basher - I know, but I think I'm not oversimplifying :) – User Anonymous Mar 18 '15 at 19:47
• Plus, the best part of having rep 1 is an immunity to possible down-votes :P – User Anonymous Mar 18 '15 at 19:48
• -1 The trick of solving a puzzle is understanding the puzzle, this puzzle clearly required thinking in generalized terms and this answer clearly fails at that. And if you actually feel sorry for being a 'killjoy', there is a simple solution: just don't post answers like this ;-) – David Mulder Mar 18 '15 at 23:20
• Yes, and as mentioned in my other comment, human gestation actually averages 280 days, which is up to a week beyond nine months, depending on which months are included. – Michael Mar 19 '15 at 16:37