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 Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:12 am
OK, I found this gem in the physics and mathematics guild. A lot of people there got creative, and I want to see what you all have to say about this. VorpalNeko Imagine that at an hour before midnight, there is an infinite collection of numbered balls and an urn of infinite capacity. Balls numbered 1-10 are put in and ball 1 is removed and thrown away. At half an hour before midnight, balls 11-20 are put in and ball 2 is removed. And so on, halving the time until next step: balls 21-30 put in at fifteen minutes before midnight and ball 3 removed, etc. Please ignore the physical limitations with this scenario. How many balls are in the urn at midnight? We came up with three "answers." What do y'all say?
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Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 8:11 pm
It's a trick question: Because we are halving the time between ball entries, it never reaches midnight. Or something parallel to that line of thought.
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Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 8:39 pm
Yeup, what WADR42 said. Since every time you make a change you are halving the between the current midnight we will never actually reach midnight. And therefore never actually know unless something breaks the pattern or we have not been given all the pieces to the equation.
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Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:47 pm
So, what amount of gold do I get for solving the puzzle?
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 11:12 pm
MyOwnBestCritic OK, I found this gem in the physics and mathematics guild. A lot of people there got creative, and I want to see what you all have to say about this. VorpalNeko Imagine that at an hour before midnight, there is an infinite collection of numbered balls and an urn of infinite capacity. Balls numbered 1-10 are put in and ball 1 is removed and thrown away. At half an hour before midnight, balls 11-20 are put in and ball 2 is removed. And so on, halving the time until next step: balls 21-30 put in at fifteen minutes before midnight and ball 3 removed, etc. Please ignore the physical limitations with this scenario. How many balls are in the urn at midnight? We came up with three "answers." What do y'all say? ...I'd give the answer, but I was there...
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Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 12:22 pm
Wait, you mean there's an answer other than the never get to midnight one?
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Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 9:42 pm
They were "answers." Which means that they were kind of correct. Can anyone think of the others?
Hee hee, BloodlvsTxBvtterflies! I am a master of copypaste 3nodding Don't give away the answer, eh?
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Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 2:08 am
Perhaps you could say that there were an infinite number of balls at midnight, because although you never reach midnight, you will also never reach infinity.
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Intellectual Elocutionist
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Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 4:30 pm
.:~*'*~:.:~*'*~:.:~*'*~:.:~*'*~:.:~*'*~:. On first instinct, I'd say that it's an infinite number of balls because the time gets infinitely smaller and smaller and thus balls go in essentially nine at a time indefinitely. 9 times infinity is infinity, right?
Shortly thereafter, I got to the answer that it will never be midnight, and that there could be any number of balls actually at midnight, or that it's ever changing.
I don't know what other answers there could be, though. .:~*'*~:.:~*'*~:.:~*'*~:.:~*'*~:.:~*'*~:.
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Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 8:22 pm
Hm... since no one's posted in awhile, I'll give a huge hint.
You're adding balls, but you're also removing them.
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