Puzzles 11 & 12
| Puzzle 11 : A simple Equation Here is a simple problem. Look at the equation below:
Obviously this does not
make sense. The challenge is to make it into a sensible
equation using only '+' and '-' signs between the numbers
on the left hand side. Two adjacent digits can be
combined (like '12' or '34' if needed). Can there be more
solutions if : b. using 'X' and '/' signs is allowed ? Send your solutions before March 1 |
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Puzzle 12: A tough one from India This is an old problem I have heard when I was young. Recently I came across the same problem in a book on puzzles. There is a legend associated with this problem. It goes like this.... A Hindu temple in Benares (India) has a brass plate with three fixed pins. On one pin, when time started there were 64 discs, each of different diameters with the largest at the bottom and the smallest at the top. All the disks in between were arranged in decreasing order of diameter, upwards. There is a priest out there whose only job is to move one disk at time to the right most pin. But there is a restriction. At no point of time can a larger disk sit above a smaller one. The middle pin can be used as temporary storage for moving the pins. As the legend goes, the priest makes one movement every second and when all the 64 discs reaches the other side the world will come to an end. Now let us come to the question. If there were only 4 discs, how many seconds, the priest would have taken? Estimate roughly, in how many years from the start of time, will the world end, if we follow this legend? Send your solutions before March 15 |
