Quandaries and Queries
  

 

My name is Ulises and I am a student interested in solving this problem:
All the students in a school are arranged in a rectangular array. After that, the tallest student in each row was chosen, and then among these John Smith happened to be the shortest.Then, in each column, the shortest student was chosen, and Mary Brown was the tallest of these. Who is taller: John or Mary?
My incompetence prevents me from solving this problem. I am grateful to you for your help.
 

 

Hi Ulises,

I have a reply to your question from Penny and another from Claude. They both give you the same hint.

Think about the row that John came from and the column that Mary came from (the rest is irrelevant at this stage) and focus on where they meet.

Penny.

and

I was there. I was in the same row as John Smith and the same column as Mary Brown.

Now ask yourself:

a) which is taller, John Smith or me?
b) which is taller, Mary Brown or me?

Claude

Harley