******* The Car Talk Puzzler Psychic Friends Network******* >From The Desk Of
Maury Maille Puzzler Tower Car Talk Plaza Hahvahd Squayah Our Fair City This Week's Puzzler: In Search of the Bogus Coins RAY: We have seven stacks of coins, each with 100 coins. Real coins weigh ten grams, and phony coins weigh 11 grams. We're going to weigh the coins on an analytic scale, which works just like your average bathroom scale -- but it's accurate to within a tenth of a gram. Here's the rub. Unlike our many fine previous coin puzzlers, in which you have one stack of coins that's counterfeit, this time you could have several stacks of coins that are counterfeit. TOM: If one coin in the stack is counterfeit, they're all counterfeit? RAY: Yes. But, it could be that none, some or all of the stacks of coins are bogus. You don't know. The question is, what's the fewest number of weighings you need to make, to determine which of the stacks, if any, has counterfeit coins? TOM: And how come it's only one weighing? RAY: Okay, wise guy. That's right. That's part two of the puzzler. How come it's only one weighing-and how are you going to do it? Think you know? Drop us a note via http://www.cartalk.com/email/email.html If you're right and we select your answer, we'll ship you a $26 Shameless Commerce Gift Certificate. Want to listen to Raymond obfuscate the puzzler in person? Listen anytime, at http://www.cartalk.com/content/puzzler/ ************ Remember last week's puzzler? Tim and Jethro's Pump-Side Wager RAY: Tim and Jethro were happy to have their jobs at the new self-serve gas station in town. And, since the Farmer's Almanac had predicted this to be the coldest winter since the last ice age, they were happy to be working indoors, while the customers pumped their own gas. This station was so modern that it had a video camera for each of the pumps, and a TV monitor that would show the rear of everyone's vehicles as soon as they pulled up to the pumps. When the boredom of their jobs finally set in, Tim and Jethro began playing a little game. The game involved trying to figure out which customers had pulled up to a pump with the fuel door on the wrong side-- that is, facing away from the pump. Now, they couldn't see the cars pull into the gas station. The video cameras were only aimed at the back of the vehicles. So, there was no time during which they could see the side of a vehicle where the fuel door was located. They could only see the vehicle after it was in position to refuel. They had to make their bets before the driver shut off the key and exited the vehicle-- before he dope slapped himself for pulling in on the wrong side. Jethro was correct 99 percent of the time. Tim was correct about 50 percent of the time, because he was just guessing. What did Jethro know that enabled him to tell when a driver had pulled up to the pump with the fuel door facing the wrong way? Here's what: http://www.cartalk.com/content/puzzler/ So, did you figure it out? Yours in weekly puzzler torment, Maury Maille Puzzler Dissemination Specialist Car Talk Plaza ******************* Doing some car research? Via our lousy, little homepage you can... *Check important safety recalls *See what your car is worth right now *Check rebates and incentives on new cars *Search your town for new or used cars for sale *Place an ad to sell your car that'll actually be seen by people in your area *Research and compare new vehicles *Get the latest car news *Kill time until 5:00 p.m. rolls around and you can pack it in. *It's all at http://www.cartalk.com *********************************** Got more time to kill? This past weekend's new, lousy Car Talk show is now on the web site, at http://www.cartalk.com/Radio/Show/ ******************** Help Ray lose the night sweats he's been getting, trying to come up with a decent puzzler each week. E-mail him your suggestion any time, via http://www.cartalk.com/email/email.html ******************** Puzzled out? You can unsubscribe to the Car Talk Puzzler Psychic Friends Network anytime at http://www.cartalk.com/ct/maillist.jsp?puzzler_list=subscribe#psychic We'll forgive you.
