Where is the other dollar?

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Three men check into a hotel late at night. There is only one room left, it costs $30, and the men decide each to chip in $10 and to share the room.

When they get to the room, they find that it is a disgusting mess. The room was never cleaned after the last people checked out. The men call the manager to complain.

The manager agrees to knock $5 off the price. He sends a bellboy to the room with clean linens and the $5 refund in the form of five $1 bills.

The three men each take $1, and let the bellboy keep $2 as a tip.

So, each man originally paid $10 and got $1 back, which means that each paid $9, which sums to $27, and the bellboy has $2, which all sums to $29.

So, where is the other dollar?

(From Everything and More, by David Foster Wallace)

30-5=25/3=8.333333333+1=9.333333333*3=28+2=30

The Algebraic order of operatons is: powers, roots, multiply, divide, add, subtact.

They were adding and subtracting before dividing. When you do operations out of order
you will have such discrepancies as the missing dollar.

Here is another way to look at the solution:

each pays $25/3 for the room, and $2/3 for the tip, which adds to $27/3 total or $9 each.