Dewa writes down a list of four integers. He calculates the average of each group of three of the four integers. These averages are . What is the largest of the four integers?
Solution
Suppose that Dewa's four numbers are . The averages of the four possible groups of three of these are . These averages are equal to , in some order. The sums of the groups of three are equal to 3 times the averages, so are , in some order. In other words, are equal to in some order. Therefore, and so which gives . Since the sum of the four numbers is 155 and the sums of groups of 3 are , then the four numbers are and so the largest number is 59.
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