Ok, this is a bit ridiculous, and I apologize for breaking pattern if anyone objects.
There's a really old logic puzzle about a guy that is going to market and he has three things with him that he needs to cross the river with, but the boat is tiny and he can only bring one thing at a time, but he can't leave these sets of two things together.
It doesn't make sense there, but give me a minute.
The version I know of was grain, goose, and fox. The one they had was cabbage, goat, wolf. I've heard others with chickens and corn, or other things.
The main thing with the story is that the first thing, grain/corn/cabbage, can't be left with the chicken/goose/goat, and that one can't be left with the third thing, the wolf/fox, but you can only take one on the boat and you have to get all three of them from one bank to the next.
It's a bit annoying because the easiest way is to take the second thing, then go back and grab the first, bring the second back to the first bank, take the third to the second bank, then grab the second thing again. Sorry that it's a bit confusing.
The reason I wanted to share this though, and that made me giggle for a while, was that this came up on an episode of 'The Infinite Monkey Cage', called 'How To Beat The House and Win At Games', released in January 2017, and the guy who brought it up seriously regretted it. He'd brought up the version with the cabbage, goat, and wolf, and the physicists that were on the panel also jumped in to point out all the problems that the story had.
The first problem pointed out was why is the guy travelling, presumably alone, with such an assortment of stuff? Why bring the wolf/fox with him? Why would he have a wolf/fox anyway?
Then, why is the boat so small? Why not stick to one side of the river or wait for a bigger boat? Plus, going back and forth that many times has to be exhausting.
Once you get passed those, there was a bit of a discussion about how you'd obviously have to tie up the goat and wolf, so couldn't you just tie them up far enough apart?
And, the thing that really sidetracked it all was that the wolf/fox would probably be ok with eating the grain/corn/cabbage if it was hungry enough.
So, considering all those questions...I wonder how many poor teachers/parents brought this out to teach their kids and regretted it?
And, one they didn't think of--if the river is calm enough for the guy to cross easily multiple times, why doesn't he make the fox/wolf swim across? Or the goose/chicken/goat, since those can all swim to some degree too. Silly farmer.
You might have a lot of fun listening to that episode of 'The Infinite Monkey Cage', so I've linked it below along with a transcript. I hope you got a laugh out of this, and I'll see you again soon later.
Source:
PodScripts-- Transcript for the episode of Infinite Monkey Cage
No comments:
Post a Comment