How Much Does a Brick Weigh?

I like puzzles that are easily stated. Today’s challenge, from the fertile mind of the late, legendary puzzle master Martin Gardner, is a model of simplicity:

How much does a brick weigh if it weighs 5 pounds plus half its own weight?

Here’s how the Saturday puzzle series works:

Readers are invited to post a solution in a comment on this page. To avoid prematurely divulging the answer, all comments are hidden by default. Twenty four hours after posting a new puzzle I make all comments visible and I recognize all correct submissions in an update to the main article Happy puzzling!

Update: We have two winners: Simon Banks and Kimberly Cohen. Let’s call the brick’s weight W. If the brick weighs 5 pounds plus half it’s weight, we can state that fact algebraically like this: W = 5 + .5W. Subtracting .5W from both sides gives us .5W = 5. Multiplying both sides by 2 yields W = 10, so the brick weighs 10 pounds.