I had lots of responses to the canoe riddle. Excellent participation! Click below for the solution.
Like many of you, I thought that Ann (the fastest paddler) was the key to achieving the fastest time overall. I tried to put Ann on as many trips over and back as I could. I ended up with 19 minutes.
I was wrong.
The fastest time possible is 17 minutes.
The key to this riddle is limiting the damage to your overall time inflicted by your slow paddlers. You must set it up so that Sue and Mike make the same journey. There are two ways to do this and both yield 17 minutes. Here is one of the solutions.
First trip: Bill and Ann travel across. Ann gets out of the canoe. Total time: 2 minutes.
Second trip: Bill paddles back alone taking 2 minutes. Bill gets out. Total time is now 4 minutes.
Third trip: Mike and Sue paddle over taking a painful 10 minutes. They both get out. Total time now: 14 minutes.
Fourth trip: Ann races back by herself taking just 1 minute. Total time now: 15 minutes
Fifth trip: Bill and Ann return back across taking 2 minutes. Total time : 17 minutes.
I'll let you figure out the other way to get 17 minutes.
Mark posted the correct response at 2:50 PM yesterday. Mark wins.
Next up: the coin riddle.
Comments