Thursday, May 11, 2006

Ok, here's another one

And if you look this one up on the intertron, you will always be disappointed in yourself.

Four engineering nuns have a meeting that starts in 17 minutes and they must cross a bridge to get there. All four nuns begin on the same side of the bridge. It is night, and the nuns only have 1 flashlight for all of them. The nuns can travel across the bridge 1 or 2 at a time, and the flashlight must go across with each group. They can't throw the flashlight across the bridge.

Each nun walks at a different rate. If a pair of nuns goes together, they walk at the rate of the slower nun.

Sister Speedy takes 1 minute to cross
Sister not quite so speedy takes 2 minutes to cross
Sister at least I'm not the slowest takes 5 minutes to cross
Mother Superior takes 10 minutes to cross

For example, if Sister Speedy and Mother Superior walk across first, they take 10 minutes. If Mother Superior then returns to guide her nuns back across, they have taken 20 minutes total and they miss their meeting and are excommunicated.

2 comments:

Bob said...

I'm impressed that the nuns figured this out in a matter of seconds so as not to be left with fewer than 17 minutes in which to cross.

The Krunchy Krab said...

I believe that the nuns knew in advance that they would have to cross the bridge, so they could plan their crossing as they traveled the road leading to the bridge.
Either that or I'm full of it.