Propositiones ad Acuendos Juvenes/Problems/43 - De Porcis/Historical Note

== Historical Note on by : Problem $43$: De Porcis == The question is raised in some sources as to whether this problem can be construed as cruelty to children.

Some suggest that may have used this problem to distract the more rambunctious of his pupils.

In any event, this is an early recognition that there exist problems which have no solution.

A more subtle variant on the problem has arisen in more recent years: dividing an odd number of pigs into pens so that is an even number of pigs in each pen.

The problem is solved by housing them in concentric pens, for example: $3$ pigs can be partitioned into $2$ pens with one pig in the inside pen, and $2$ in the outside pen.