There's a bowl full of candy bars. Mike takes1/3 of the candy bars but returns 4. John then takes 1/4 of what was left but returns 3 , and Henry took 1/2 of the remainder but returned 2. The bowl had 17 candy bars left. How many candy bars were originally in the bowl

39

48 To find the number of candy bars originally in the bowl, we need to work backward and undo the operations that Mike, John, and Henry did.

Let's start with the number of candy bars after all the takings and returns. We know that the bowl had 17 candy bars left after Henry's turn.

Step 1: Undo Henry's actions.
Henry took 1/2 of the remainder but returned 2. So, before Henry's turn, we can find the number of candy bars by adding 2 to the number of candy bars left after his turn. Therefore, before Henry's turn, there were 17 + 2 = 19 candy bars.

Step 2: Undo John's actions.
John took 1/4 of what was left but returned 3. So, before John's turn, we can find the number of candy bars by adding 3 to the number of candy bars left after his turn. Therefore, before John's turn, there were 19 + 3 = 22 candy bars.

Step 3: Undo Mike's actions.
Mike took 1/3 of the candy bars but returned 4. So, before Mike's turn, we can find the number of candy bars by adding 4 to the number of candy bars left after his turn. Therefore, before Mike's turn, there were 22 + 4 = 26 candy bars.

Therefore, the original number of candy bars in the bowl was 26.