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Posted on 20 June 2012
With two people (A and B), there is one handshake
(A with B).
With three people (A, B, and C), there are three handshakes
(A with B and C; B with C).
With four people (A, B, C, and D), there are six handshakes
(A with B, C, and D; B with C and D; C with D).
In general, with n+1 people, the number of handshakes is the sum of the first n consecutive numbers: 1+2+3+ ... + n.
Since this sum is n(n+1)/2, we need to solve the equation n(n+1)/2 = 66.
This is the quadratic equation n2+ n -132 = 0. Solving for n, we obtain 11 as the answer and deduce that there were 12 people at the party.