by Moe Zilla

Created on: January 25, 2008

This is a trick question, which dates all the way back to the 1800s. It began with a famous 19th-century expression - that someone foolish "doesn't know how many beans make five." The obvious answer to the question is five, and it found it's way into jokes about people who couldn't answer the question.

But people then delighted in finding alternate answers. For example, "making five" implies adding extra beans until you've reached the number five, so assuming the starting position was one bean, the correct answer is "four!"

And soon a tricky variation of the puzzle had evolved. "How many blue beans make five white beans?" The obvious answer would be that blue beans can't become white beans, no matter how many of them there are. But the correct answer is "five blue beans - if you peel them!"

In fact, in 1848 a literary magazine called "The Knickerbocker" published a four-page story in which a great orator is challenged to create an inspiring answer. He concludes by describing a tropical island nation, where "Amongst the vegetation that runs wanton through the land is a beautiful vine that bears a still more beautiful azure bean..." The bean is the indigenous symbol of joy, and the number five has a mystical symbolism in the tribesman's religion, so "It means simply this. 'How many bright joys make up the pleasure of life?'"

"The orator resumed his seat amidst prolonged cheers."

In 1921 A. A. Milne returned to the original question in a collection of short stories titled "The Sunny Side." In an essay called "High Jinks at Happy-Thought Hall," an ineffective army captain reports that one soldier asked "How many blue beans make five."

"We were all so interested in working it out that we never got into action at all."

Yes, the answer to the question is five. But A. A. Milne knew that the real fun lies in watching people second-guessing their original answer.

"But that's easy," said the Professor. "Five."

"Four," said Miss Phipps. (She would. Silly kid!)

"Six," said the Squire.

Milne doesn't supply the answer in the story, simply asking the reader "Which was right?" But from a simple math perspective, there's only one correct answer to the question "How many blue beans make five."

Five.

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