Here's an interesting puzzle:
A banana plantation is located next to a desert. The plantation owner has 3000 bananas that he wants to transport to the market by camel, across a 1000 kilometre stretch of desert. The owner has only one camel, which carries a maximum of 1000 bananas at any moment in time, and eats one banana every kilometre it travels. What is the largest number of bananas that can be delivered at the market?
I was able to deliver 533 bananas. Do let me know if you could do better.
4 comments:
Hey, sorry if I am sounding dim. I could not fathom your solution of 533 bananas, nor am I able to proceed with the problem.
Can you just make sure you've stated all the figures correctly? Are you assuming that the owner himself is capable of carrying a few bananas in his pocket? :-)
@Vivek : The data are all proper vivek. And no, he can't carry anything in his pockets :)
Oh man.. this must be one of those lateral thinking ones then!
Its been a while since you posted this, and no one has bothered with the problem. Why don't you post our answer [for my sake atleast :)], and see if somebody tries to improve upon it?
first he carries 1000 bananas and travels 500 kms. By the time he reached there, Camel would have eaten 500 bananas. drop the remaining 500 bananas there itself, and just bring the camel back. Now again take 1000 bananas and travel the same 500km stretch, again you will get 500 banana remaining. repeat the same for another set of 1000 bananas, now you have 1500 banans at 500th Km. Now take 1000 out of 1500 bananas, travel a stretch of 250 KM, and you will have 750 bananas at 750th KM, drop all 750 there, and travel back to 500th point, take the 500 banans remaining over there and proceed to 750th KM stone. You will get 250 bannas this time. Now at 750th point you have totally 1000 banans remaining, travel the remaining 250 KMs with 1000 bananas, and you can get 750 bananas to market.....is it OK
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