RAY:This was inspired an e-mail I stole from Charlie Straus. The seven employees of the Coney Island Crab Cake Company are sitting around the lunchroom having what?

BOTH: Crab cakes.

RAY: For lunch. And they decide that they'd like to know the average salary of the employees at the Coney Island Crab Cake Company. Now, obviously, they could each write down their salary and they could add it up and divide by seven but they don't want to do that because nobody wants to divulge his salary, nor does anyone want to know the salaries of the other guys.

TOM: It could only lead to trouble.

RAY: As luck would have it, the owner happens to come in and they say, "Hey, can you tell us the average salary here?" And he says, "Well, no, I can tell you what the highest salary is and what the lowest is, and I call tell you also that none of you earns the same amount. Everyone's salary is different. But I can't tell you what the average salary is. You'll have to figure that out for yourselves," and he leaves with a plate of crab cakes. Now the question is: how can these seven people figure out their average salary without divulging anyone's salary or even finding out what the high and low salaries are?

TOM: Hmm.

RAY: And I think I may have hinted that the boss was a red herring, and he is. You don't have to know any of that stuff. I had to unclarify.

TOM: Unclarify, declarify.

RAY: And obfuscate. Here's how you do it. The first guy takes his salary and to it adds some number that he plucks out of the air. Let's say his salary is 500 bucks a week, he adds 8000 to it. He turns to the guy next to him and whispers, "8500," in his ear. Now that guy doesn't know anything. He doesn't know what part of that is his salary and what part of that is the made up number. He then adds his salary to that 8500 and whispers it to the guy next to him.

TOM: Yeah.

RAY: Down the line. Finally the seventh guy has this huge number and he's obviously adds his salary to it.

TOM: And he gives it back to guy number one.

RAY: He gives it back to guy number one. Guy number one subtracts the 8000 or whatever it is he added, divides by seven, and hence the average salary, and nobody knows nothing, and nobody gets hurt. And so we have a winner?

TOM: You bet we do. The winner is Allen Womack from Kushada, Louisiana.

[ Car Talk Puzzler ]