Scales And Vesells

1. How can you measure out exactly 4 litres of water from a tap using a 3 litre and a
5 litre bucket?
Ans
2. 3litre 5litre
3. ----- ------
4. 0 5
5. 3 2
6. 0 2
7. 2 0
8. 2 5
9. 3 4
10. A 24 litre bucket is full of lemonade. 3 men want to have equal amounts of it to
take home, but they only have a 13 litre, a 5 litre and an 11 litre bucket. How do
they do it?
Ans
11. 24 13 11 5
12. ----------
13. 24 0 0 0
14. 11 13 0 0
15. 6 13 0 5
16. 6 2 11 5
17. 8 0 11 5
18. 8 5 11 0
19. 8 13 3 0
20. 8 8 3 5
21. 8 8 8 0
22. A Queen (78kg), the Prince (36kg) and the King (42kg) are stuck at the top of a
tower. A pulley is fixed to the top of the tower. Over the pulley is a rope with a
basket on each end. One basket has a 30kg stone in it. The baskets are enough for
2 people or 1 person and the stone. For safety's sake there can't be more than a
6kg difference between the weights of the baskets if someone's inside. How do
the people all escape?
Ans
23. Basket 1 Basket 2
24. ---------------------
25. Stone up Prince down
26. King down Prince up
27. nothing up Stone down
28. Queen down Stone and King up
29. nothing up Stone down
30. Prince down Stone up
31. nothing up Stone down
32. King down Prince up
33. Stone up Prince down
34. One out of 9 otherwise identical balls is overweight. How can it be identified after
2 weighings?
Ans: Weigh 3 against 3, then you'll know which group of 3 contains the heavy
ball. Pick 2 balls from that group and weigh one against the other.
 35. One out of 27 otherwise identical balls is overweight. How can it be identified
after 3 weighings?
Ans: Weigh 9 against 9, then 3 against 3.
36. How many ways can you put 10 sweets into 3 bags so that each bag contains an
odd number of sweets?
Ans 15 solutions. The first trick is to realise that if you put one bag inside another,
then sweets in the inner bag are also in the outer bag. The only workable
configuration is to put one bag inside another and leave the third alone. The
answers can be obtained using the following octave script, where bag b is inside
bag a
37. for a=0:10
38. for b=0:(10-a)
39. c=10-a-b;
40. if (rem((a+b),2)==1 && rem(b,2)==1 && rem(c,2)==1)
41. fprintf('a=%d b=%d c=%d\n',a,b,c)
42. end
43. end
44. end

Ferries
1. A man has to take a hen, a fox, and some corn across a river. He can only take one
thing across at a time. Unless the man is present the fox will eat the hen and the
hen eat the corn. How is it done?
Ans
2. MAN AND HEN ->
3. <- MAN
4. MAN AND FOX ->
5. <- MAN AND HEN
6. MAN AND CORN ->
7. <- MAN
8. MAN AND HEN ->
9. 3 missionaries and 3 obediant but hungry cannibals have to cross a river using a
2-man rowing boat. If on either bank cannibals outnumber missionaries the
missionaries will be eaten. How can everyone cross safely?
Ans
10. CANNIBAL and MISSIONARY ->
11. <- MISSIONARY
12. CANNIBAL and CANNIBAL ->
13. <- CANNIBAL
14. MISSIONARY and MISSIONARY ->
15. <- CANNIBAL and MISSIONARY
16. MISSIONARY and MISSIONARY ->
17. <- CANNIBAL
18. CANNIBAL and CANNIBAL ->
19. <- CANNIBAL
20. CANNIBAL and CANNIBAL ->
21. 2 men and 2 boys need to cross a river in a boat big enough for 1 man or 2 boys.
How do they do it?
Ans
22. BOY and BOY ->
23. <- BOY
 24. MAN ->
25. <- BOY
26. BOY and BOY ->
27. <- BOY
28. MAN ->
29. <- BOY
30. BOY and BOY ->
SMP and CSE 1974 extend this to cover the case of n men.
Picking captains

1. 6 boys pick a captain by forming a circle then eliminating every n'th boy. The 2nd
boy in the counting order can choose n. If he wants to be captain what's the
smallest n he should pick?
Ans: 10
2. 12 black mice and 1 white mouse are in a ring. Where should a cat start so that if
he eats every 13th mouse the white mouse will be last?
Ans: If the white mouse is 1st in the counting order, the cat should start at the 7th
mouse : hint - start anywhere, see how far out you are, then make the necessary
correction
3. 20 passengers are in a sinking ship. 10 are mathematicians. They all stand in a
ring. Every 7th climbs into the lifeboat which can only hold 10 people. Where
should the mathematicians stand in the ring?
Ans: 1 4 5 7 8 9 14 15 16 17
4. 30 passengers are in a sinking ship. They all stand in a circle. Every 9th passenger
goes overboard. The lifeboat holds 15. Where are the 15 lucky positions in the
circle?
Ans: 1 2 3 4 10 11 13 14 15 17 20 21 25 28 29

The last of these questions can be answered using the following octave script
howmanyatstart=30;
howmanyatend=15;
first=1;
leap=9;

x=first-1;
a=1:howmanyatstart;
while (length(a)>howmanyatend)
x=rem(x-1+leap,length(a));
a(x+1)=[];
end
a
By changing the initial values in this script you can solve questions 2 and 3