[math puzzle] Payment in fraction of gold bars.
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03-20-2018, 10:06 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-20-2018 10:08 PM by pier4r.)
Post: #1
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[math puzzle] Payment in fraction of gold bars.
You are a generous employer. You pay one of your employee with one gold bar each week.
The point is that you pay him with 1/7 of the gold bar each day of the week. The gold bar is a prism with trapezoid base or, simplified, with a rectangular base. What is the minimum amount of cuts that one need to do to be able to pay the employee? A guy in the MathJam meeting today was able to find a really "out of the box" but valid solution (in payments terms, with the employee cooperation) with only 2 cuts. Really neat. Also this problem for me could be linked to the egyptian fraction problems. Wikis are great, Contribute :) |
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03-20-2018, 11:06 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-20-2018 11:40 PM by SlideRule.)
Post: #2
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RE: [math puzzle] Payment in fraction of gold bars.
Cut the bar into 3 unequal pieces as follows:
piece 1; 1/7 of the total bar from the left end = P1 piece 2: 2/7 of the total bar from the right end = P2 piece 3; 4/7 of the remaining bar = P4 Day 1 = +P1 Day 2 = -P1+P2 Day 3 = +P1+P2 Day 4 = -P1-P2+P4 Day 5 = +P1+P4 Day 6 = -P1+P2+P4 Day 7 = +P1+P2+P4 If you ignore the P, the +#'s add to the desired daily amount ps: (+) mean give to employee & (-) means take from employee BEST! SlideRule |
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