Puzzle of the day We have a joke and quote of the day thought this one would be fun; but since its in this forum will relate to precious metals. BTW no price for getting it right You have nine 1 oz "silver" coins. 1 is a fake and is made from alluminium but not discernable to naked eye (so same shape and colour); and you are allowed only 2 beam balance weigh-ins. Work out a system where you will always get the fake out of the nine
Seperate 9 coins into 3 groups of 3 coins: Group 1 - 1,2,3 Group 2 - 4,5,6 Group 3 - 7,8,9 Weigh Group 1 & 2 against each other. If one group is lighter, the Al coin is in that group. If both groups balance each other, the Al coin is in the third group. Repeat this weigh-in using the light group of 3 coins.
You stack them into vertical triangle. 4 coins on the base follows by three then two then one stacking on top of each other. The last one on top is the one.
I find the following puzzle fantastic, and tends to highlight deeply rooted "intuitive assumptions/beliefs" that are instinctive in humans, and that often trip us up - especially in things like trading or investing: Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three boxes: Inside one box is a 10oz gold bar; Inside the others, a 1oz silver coin. You pick a box, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's inside each box, opens another box, say No. 3, which contains a 1oz silver coin. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick box No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?
Did you tell him a sob story about your poor old mum in hospital with pancreatic cancer during the game show?
Youse guys should learn to spell instead of wasting your time on puzzles. "There is always a rat in separate."
next one: i give this one to my high school students was not related to PMs but I'm changing the story slightly so it does. You have 4 loads of gold on one side of the river (unequal loads). Ben Bernanke is chasing you to steal all your gold and you have exactly one hour to cross the river and get away with all your gold. You have a small boat and cant fit all your bullion at once. They can be taken in 2 loads at a time but when you come back to the other side of the river one of the loads has to be with you. Load 1: 25 minutes Load 2: 20 minutes Load 3: 10 minutes Load 4: 5 minutes This means that if you take lets say load 2 and 4 accross the higher of the two loads is the amount of time it will take you to get accross. And then you return with one of the loads to eg. load 4 the other side it takes 5 minutes. You keep doing this till all loads are on the other side here's an example below: L1 +L4 = 25min L4 returns= 5min L2 and L4 = 20 min L4 returns = 5min L3 and L4 = 10 min Total = 65 min which means you got causght cause you had 60 min maximum. I 'm guessing this one should take more than 15 min
L1 +L4 = 25min L4 returns= 5min L2 and L3 = 20 min Leave L4 on the bank for Bernanke to have. It's only 1/12th of your total anyway, no need to be greedy when you're trying to escape from an evil Fed chairman. Plus you've got 10 mins up your sleeve, maybe you can set a trap for him.
Well the first box was 1 in 3 chance, and the second choice is a 1 in 2 chance. So better to switch. But i still think it is irrelevant as by the time you get the choice to switch, the third box is irrelevant so it's just a 50/50 (IMO).
Took me a wee bit longer than the last one: L3 + L4 = 10min L3 returns=10min L1 + L2 = 25min L4 returns = 5min L3 + L4 = 10min Total = 60min
Correct! better to switch. Simply put, if the contestant picks a silver coin (which two of the three boxes contain) the contestant will win the gold by switching as the other silver coin can no longer be picked, while if the contestant picks the gold (which one box contains) the contestant will not win the gold by switching. So, if contestants switch, they will win the gold if they originally picked a silver coin and they will not win if they originally picked the gold. As they have a 2 in 3 chance of originally picking a silver coin, they have a 2 in 3 chance of winning by switching. It has been proved to be statistically significant, and a fact that it is advantageous to switch, using long-term simulations. Nearly all people still think each of the two unopened boxes has an equal probability and conclude switching does not matter. This "equal probability" assumption is a deeply rooted intuition. People strongly tend to think probability is evenly distributed across as many unknowns as are present, whether it is or not. The typical behaviour of the majority, i.e., not switching, may be explained by phenomena known in the psychological literature as: 1. The endowment effect. People tend to overvalue the winning probability of the already chosen already "owned" box. 2. The status quo bias. People prefer to stick with the choice of boxthey have already made. This is where people can come unstuck when investing based solely on their interpretation of fundamentals - they won't change their view if they already have a stake committed.
Well done wrcmad Last one for tonight: You're a bank manager in a SHTF crisis and your bank has 1000 safety deposit boxes filled with gold. Since fiat is now irrelevant you dont worry about all the stacks of dollars euros and pounds that are stacked in the vault. You do know that one of the deposit boxes has gold/silver bullion in it and rest are tungsten bars at the core but that deposit box with real gold is fitted with a dispenser of some kind of biological/chemical agent that will kill you over a period between 12-24 hrs without any symptoms in the mean time. The dispenser is so small that noone really notices it when searching for it. You dont have access to any protection equipment or any technolgy that distinguishes gold from tungsten however you do have access to a large group of employees that work for you. These can be used to check the contents of the boxes. Now bear in mind that time is of the essence and that you want least amount of people to die for your cause. The only way to know which box contains real gold is the one where the person dies from opening it. Whats the minimum number of employees you will need to die for you to find the real gold. So explain how many employees you will need and how many will die and your strategy
I'm working on it, but had a few too many to figure it out tonight. My first instictive answer was 1 - just make sure you get a union rep to check all the boxes.
If no hard time limit is provided, just that it 'is of the essence' (?), then: Just get the one employee to open one box per day... the day they die, just go collect the last box they opened . Hey, if you're really lucky you might get it first go. Or, depending on how much time you need, you could start with 1000 employees if needed within 24hrs, or 500 employees if needed within 48hrs (open two boxes over two days), or 250 over 3 days, 125 over 4 days, etc. It's a fairly blunt strategy. Or with unlimited time, and if boxes could be opened multiple times (and still kill people), then you could take the psychopath's (aka bank CEO) approach of getting two people to open 500 boxes each, then when one of them dies, get two people to open the remaining 500 (250 each), and repeat. You'd end up killing at least 9 people that way, over 9 days. Or you could just run an office version of 'deal or no deal' (death or no death) . (I just realised wrcmad already posted my first answer)
