You are police officer who just showed up to a crime scene where the instructions for disarming a bomb are left. The bomb is sitting in front of a large fountain of water. Also, two large bottles are near the bomb. One bottle has a capacity of 5.2 gallons while the other has a capacity of 4 gallons. Both contain a mark which indicates when the bottle is full. You must fill one of the bottles with exactly 2.4 gallons of water and then place the bottle on top of a scale that is sitting next to the bomb to disarm it. Unfortunately, you don’t have time to go get any other measuring tools. How can you be sure to put 2.4 gallons in one of the bottles of water before the two minute timer runs out?
As usual, the answer to this Problem of the Week will be posted next week on March 5, 2012 at 12:00 AM (EST) can be found here.
2 Comments
ildar · March 12, 2012 at 9:27 PM
I know this kind of tasks.
1. Fill the 5.2 bottle and pour the 4.0 bottle. So we have 1.2 of water in the 5.2 bottle and the full 4.0 bottle.
2. Pour out from the 4.0 bottle and put the rest (1.2) from the 5.2.
3. Fill the 5.2 bottle again and pour out 2.8 to the 4.0 bottle until the second will full. After that we have 2.4 in the 5.2 bottle.
POW Answer – Disarm A Bomb with Water | Chris West's Blog · March 16, 2012 at 4:22 PM
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