A camel is sitting by a stack of 3,000 bananas at the edge of a 1000-mile wide desert. He is going to travel across the desert, carrying as many bananas as he can to the other side. He can carry up to 1,000 bananas at any given time, but he eats one banana at every mile.
What is the maximum number of bananas the camel can transport across the desert?
How does he do it?
8 comments:
Take 1,000 bananas 400 miles, three trips cost you 2,000 bananas. Two round trips one single trip. leaves you 600 miles from destination, with 1,000 bananas, all you can carry, you arrive with 400 bananas with none wasted.
I think that is the best I can do.
Camels don't eat bananas
Mark doesn't do math
That is the job of Aunt Ann and Dad
Take 1,000 bananas 9/10 mile. Drop 'em. Go back and get 1,000 more. Take them 9/10 mile and drop those too. Go back and get the last 1,000. Take them 9/10 mile and drop them beside the others.
Repeat until all bananas are across the desert, or camel is dead from malnutrition. :-P
1000 with a muzzle. :)
Zero.
He'll get across the desert once, having eaten all the bananas, but he won't have any food to get back across the desert to fetch any more. Personally I think he should sub-contract to a non-banana=eating animal (like a normal camel)
Let's see. He can p/up 1000. Go 10 miles in, dump the 980 cuz he ate 10 and takes 10 for the trip back, then picks up another 1000, takes them 10 miles in, dump that 980 left, taking another 10 for the trip back, so he has 1960 dumped 10 miles in, and goes back again taking 10 with him, p/up the last 1000, eat 10 back, dump that 990 which makes 2950 bananas 10 miles in. Which means he has 900 miles to go. So, he can only pick up 1000bananas, so at this rate, it would be cheaper and faster to call Fed Ex because it absolutely has to be there by 10:30 the next morning.
Why you do this, milly?
argh! 990 miles to go. argh!
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