Bar of Gold

[Tiberius]

It's a lateral thinking problem. OF COURSE it has to be simple and clever. You can answer lateral thinking problems in many ways, since they are open ended. However, answers must abide by the rules, and answers that just go completely out of reality (like buying more gold, etc) are unacceptable.

The act of "giving" is the lateral part here. You can give someone a piece of gold and then take it back the next day in order to give them change. It doesn't negate the rule "you must give him a piece of gold every day" since you are giving him a piece of gold every day, in the same way a mother gives a child a chocolate bar (i.e. handing it over). As I already explained though, nothing prevented you in the question from taking back the gold in order to do some clever mathematics.

As for your pot suggestion, it doesn't matter. It's completely irrelevant in terms of this problem as one of lateral thinking. You can "laterally think" it into the answer, but when your gold is coming up with a way in which the worker can be paid something each day, you are only making it harder for yourself to actually answer the question correctly. Why on earth would you want to do that?

As leo said, it's a mental exercise, nothing else.

[Meatball]

I'm just sayin' that if my boss tried to pay using that kind of lateral thinking I'd go straight to the labour board.

[Dotard]

If you're offering these up as math problems then present them as such. Presented as they were they appear as 'trick' questions.

As you say, open ended. You say "OF COURSE it has to be simple..." well then my 'solution' of handing the worker a segment and having him break off the change is the simplest and does not violate the implied rule "If you are only allowed to make two breaks in the gold bar..." as YOU did not break it, he did. Just as "correct" as the correct answer.



Jeez I love being difficult.

[Zhalentine]

If you're offering these up as math problems then present them as such. Presented as they were they appear as 'trick' questions.

As you say, open ended. You say "OF COURSE it has to be simple..." well then my 'solution' of handing the worker a segment and having him break off the change is the simplest and does not violate the implied rule "If you are only allowed to make two breaks in the gold bar..." as YOU did not break it, he did. Just as "correct" as the correct answer.



Jeez I love being difficult.

Perhaps you didn't see his previous thread about these but he is getting the problems from books he got for christmas.

[Tiberius]

If you're offering these up as math problems then present them as such. Presented as they were they appear as 'trick' questions.

I never said it was a math question. It has a basis in maths (binary counting), but the question itself is lateral.

As you say, open ended. You say "OF COURSE it has to be simple..." well then my 'solution' of handing the worker a segment and having him break off the change is the simplest and does not violate the implied rule "If you are only allowed to make two breaks in the gold bar..." as YOU did not break it, he did. Just as "correct" as the correct answer.

Well that would have worked if I hadn't qualified my statement when you offered this the first time:

No. To put it another way, the bar can only be broken into three pieces...ever. You have to work out a payment plan over 7 days so that you give him the same rate of gold a day.

Jeez I love being difficult.

I can tell. You also seem to like being wrong too...very odd.