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| Subj:.....The
Gold Chain (S458b, S637)
From: Gray's Brain Teasers on 10/30/05 . DPhoto
from
IOffer.com...
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. Source: http://256.com/gray/teasers/ |
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| A woman
wants to buy a painting at an auction where you bid grams of gold instead
of money. She owns a gold chain made of 23 interlocking loops,
each weighing 1 gram. She wants to go to a jeweler before the auction to cut the minimum number of loops that would allow her to pay any sum from 1 to 23. For example, she could pay a 13 gram price with a 12 link chain and a single link. After much thought, she figures out a way to do it by cutting just 2 of the loops in the chain. How many loops are in the pieces of chains that she has after the 2 cuts? .
THE SOLUTION
Cut the 4th and 11th loops
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