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Posted by Denis Borris on 22/10/2009, 10:05 pm
This one should be right up your "alley"!
A. B.. C.. D. E : containers
2 36 53 54 98 : marbles
5 containers contain marbles as shown above.
Each container is large enough to contain all the marbles.
The object of this puzzling endeavor is end up with all
the marbles in container C.
To make your job more interesting than simply emptying
the other 4 containers in C, the following underhanded
rules have been thoughtfully devised:
1- a container receiving marbles must be left with
3 times more marbles than what it contained prior
to the dumping process.
2- so if you first pour from E into A, A must be left
with 6 marbles (leaving 94 in E).
3- the above example is "one move"; you are allowed
a generous 7 moves.
4- in case some of you want to shame me by finding a
way in less than 7 moves, tough bananas: this is
MY puzzle and 7 moves it is!
5- in case some of you find a different way than mine
to do this in 7 moves, congratulations; but if your 6
answers (see below) don't add up to 574, try again!
So, contents of container C will look like this:
START(53) MOVE1(a) MOVE2(b) MOVE3(c) MOVE4(d) MOVE5(e) MOVE6(f) MOVE7(243)
a + b + c + d + e + f = 574.
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