How would you cross puzzle land?

[plasmid]

In your travels, you come to a crossroads with two men who only answer yes/no questions, one of whom always tells the truth and another always lies. You are about to make short work of the puzzle, but then you notice that there are actually dozens of possible paths out from the crossroads. Mildly flustered, you turn to one of the men and ask, “If I were to ask the other fellow what your answer to this question is, would he say 'yes'?” After thinking a moment and stuttering a bit, the man's head explodes. The remaining one is so scared witless that he gives you directions, and you know that even if he were the liar he would at this point not dare to cross you. (He volunteers something along the lines of, “If you were to ask me which way you wanted to go, I'd say that way.”)

You then come across a river, a fox, a chicken, a bag of grain, and a rowboat that can only carry you and one piece of cargo. Since crossing the river in a rowboat is a lot of work, you take off a shoelace and use it to muzzle the chicken, and then get everything across in five crossings instead of seven. You recover your shoelace with a bit of chicken spit (not misspelled) and continue onward.

You bring your fox, chicken, and grain to a sheer cliff face. The path takes you to a spot halfway up, and at the top is the market where you want to sell them. The cliff has a pulley mechanism with a basket to bring up you and your goods, and a counterweight container to be filled with water, along with a warning: "Fill the counterweight with too little water and you'll go crashing down. Fill it with too much water and you'll be hurled up out of control. Fill it just right, and a small push will take you safely to the top. Be sure you're balanced before releasing the brakes! The empty counterweight container weighs just as much as the empty basket." You weigh yourself and your goods on an electric scale and it reads 83 kg, and runs out of power and shuts down immediately afterward. There is a 20 L jug and a 5 L jug and a waterfall to fill them with. How do you get up the cliff? (Remember from the previous two encounters that you're a bit of a wise-a**.)

[Guest]

i will reread the question...dumbass

Edited April 3, 2009 by slight

[Guest]

Full the counterweight with 80 liters from the big jug. Add approx. half the 5l jug for a total of 82 1/2kg. Now drink the rest of the water and urinate from the basket into the counterweight until you start to move upwards.

[Guest]

never press the brakes. keep filling it up until u start going slowly up

[Guest]

leave the brake on and climb up the rope.

[plasmid]

Clarification:

Remember, the path took you halfway up the cliff face, which is where all this machinery is. The brakes are currently on, allowing you to fill the counterweight and then board the basket before releasing the brakes.

[Guest]

Does it say that the path ends at the machine? It just says it took you to a spot. So you would say "screw this, I'll keep walking"....that or put your goods in the basket, send them up out of control and walk back down.

[Guest]

Why don't you

Put your baggage in the basket, fill both jugs with water and send them flying up, you can climb all the way up there

[Guest]

Why don't you

Put your baggage in the basket, fill both jugs with water and send them flying up, you can climb all the way up there

You don't know how much everything weighs individually, you only know the total weight. If you knew your own weight, you could probably guess correctly but from the information given it would be possible (albeit unlikely) that the goods weight more than the jugs and go falling down the cliff instead of up.

[Guest]

Now, what powered the electric scale?

[Guest]

I do so enjoy when someone approaches this type of puzzle in a novel way. I especially like the irreverence applied to the classic chicken/fox/grain riddle.

Fill the counter weight with 80 liters of water. Grab on to the half of the rope that is attached to the counterweight and use your own strength to compensate for the difference while you release the brake. Then you simply pull yourself up hand over hand. This should be quite easy given that you can most likely handle the 3 kg left over. You did carry the fox, chicken and grain, after all. I figure it would take roughly the same effort of hauling up a gallon or so of water the same distance.

You could probably fill the counterweight with the other 5 liters and simply apply a little less force in the opposite direction to compensate. I think this way would be less natural for the climber, however.

[Guest]

I do so enjoy when someone approaches this type of puzzle in a novel way. I especially like the irreverence applied to the classic chicken/fox/grain riddle.

Fill the counter weight with 80 liters of water. Grab on to the half of the rope that is attached to the counterweight and use your own strength to compensate for the difference while you release the brake. Then you simply pull yourself up hand over hand. This should be quite easy given that you can most likely handle the 3 kg left over. You did carry the fox, chicken and grain, after all. I figure it would take roughly the same effort of hauling up a gallon or so of water the same distance.

You could probably fill the counterweight with the other 5 liters and simply apply a little less force in the opposite direction to compensate. I think this way would be less natural for the climber, however.

Perhaps you could fill up the Counterweight with an amount of water you think is greater than your weight, but less than your weight plus one of the full jugs of water. Once you release the brake, as you start to drop, begin dumping the water out of the jug until you start to rise again. No clue how you could make an educated guess about the weight of the water, though.

[Guest]

Perhaps you could fill up the Counterweight with an amount of water you think is greater than your weight, but less than your weight plus one of the full jugs of water. Once you release the brake, as you start to drop, begin dumping the water out of the jug until you start to rise again. No clue how you could make an educated guess about the weight of the water, though.

I was working around the same idea. The weight of 1L of water = 1kg (density of water is 1g/mL). One question I had in mind while working this idea was - how fast would the pulley fall/rise after the brakes are released? If there is no resistance, you'll be free falling, and, unless you are an acrobat (I know I'm not), I don't believe that a normal person can react fast enough and with such precision to pour out a small amount of water at a time enough to balance out the weight difference.

[plasmid]

Holy cow, Grayven, too bad I can't quote your signature in this response but CONGRATULATIONS!

There have been some good ideas so far, I think I'll hold off on posting what I had in mind and leave some time for more to come in. After all, any problem that depends on trickery is bound to have multiple good answers. But for those of you who wanted to send the goods up alone and uncontrolled to be collected later at the top, your stuff would run a big larceny risk.

[plasmid]

Aww, no one else is going to post a wiseguy answer? Ok...

[spoiler='Here's how I would do it

']First, since there's a 20 L jug and a 5 L jug, hopefully that means my measurements won't need to be any more precise than 5 L to get the machine to work safely. Also, the scale said 83 kg and not 83.0 kg, so I only know that the weight is somewhere between 82.5 and 83.5: if the solution requires more accuracy than that, then I'm out of luck no matter what I do.

But I'd still try to play it as safe as I could. I'd first fill the counterweight with 80 L. Then I'd fill the 5 L jug and take advantage of the fact that 1 L of water is about as much as I can drink in one sitting without really pushing myself overboard. After drinking about 1 L (aiming toward the high end with my estimate – better to go over rather than under as you'll see in a moment) I would pour the rest in the counterweight to bring it to 84 L (= 84 kg). Since I just drank a liter of water, the weight of myself and the goods is now 84 kg instead of 83. Now I load up the basket with myself and my goods, and prepare to release the break, but first...

...I unzip my pants.

As scsw pointed out, if the pulley system is very low resistance, then I might end up plummeting down in virtual free-fall and not have the time and coordination to make adjustments. However, if I were quite startled by going into free-fall, and if I just drank a liter of water, then my natural reflexes would take care of releasing the extra weight over the side without any coordinated action on my part. As long as my pants are unzipped, that is.

[Guest]

Aww, no one else is going to post a wiseguy answer? Ok...

[spoiler='Here's how I would do it

']First, since there's a 20 L jug and a 5 L jug, hopefully that means my measurements won't need to be any more precise than 5 L to get the machine to work safely. Also, the scale said 83 kg and not 83.0 kg, so I only know that the weight is somewhere between 82.5 and 83.5: if the solution requires more accuracy than that, then I'm out of luck no matter what I do.

But I'd still try to play it as safe as I could. I'd first fill the counterweight with 80 L. Then I'd fill the 5 L jug and take advantage of the fact that 1 L of water is about as much as I can drink in one sitting without really pushing myself overboard. After drinking about 1 L (aiming toward the high end with my estimate – better to go over rather than under as you'll see in a moment) I would pour the rest in the counterweight to bring it to 84 L (= 84 kg). Since I just drank a liter of water, the weight of myself and the goods is now 84 kg instead of 83. Now I load up the basket with myself and my goods, and prepare to release the break, but first...

...I unzip my pants.

As scsw pointed out, if the pulley system is very low resistance, then I might end up plummeting down in virtual free-fall and not have the time and coordination to make adjustments. However, if I were quite startled by going into free-fall, and if I just drank a liter of water, then my natural reflexes would take care of releasing the extra weight over the side without any coordinated action on my part. As long as my pants are unzipped, that is.

Lol. You crack me up. I'll be waiting for the next one eagerly.

[Guest]

In your travels, you come to a crossroads with two men who only answer yes/no questions, one of whom always tells the truth and another always lies. You are about to make short work of the puzzle, but then you notice that there are actually dozens of possible paths out from the crossroads. Mildly flustered, you turn to one of the men and ask, “If I were to ask the other fellow what your answer to this question is, would he say 'yes'?” After thinking a moment and stuttering a bit, the man's head explodes. The remaining one is so scared witless that he gives you directions, and you know that even if he were the liar he would at this point not dare to cross you. (He volunteers something along the lines of, “If you were to ask me which way you wanted to go, I'd say that way.”)

You then come across a river, a fox, a chicken, a bag of grain, and a rowboat that can only carry you and one piece of cargo. Since crossing the river in a rowboat is a lot of work, you take off a shoelace and use it to muzzle the chicken, and then get everything across in five crossings instead of seven. You recover your shoelace with a bit of chicken spit (not misspelled) and continue onward.

You bring your fox, chicken, and grain to a sheer cliff face. The path takes you to a spot halfway up, and at the top is the market where you want to sell them. The cliff has a pulley mechanism with a basket to bring up you and your goods, and a counterweight container to be filled with water, along with a warning: "Fill the counterweight with too little water and you'll go crashing down. Fill it with too much water and you'll be hurled up out of control. Fill it just right, and a small push will take you safely to the top. Be sure you're balanced before releasing the brakes! The empty counterweight container weighs just as much as the empty basket." You weigh yourself and your goods on an electric scale and it reads 83 kg, and runs out of power and shuts down immediately afterward. There is a 20 L jug and a 5 L jug and a waterfall to fill them with. How do you get up the cliff? (Remember from the previous two encounters that you're a bit of a wise-a**.)

well one mL of water is 1g, so you should have 83000 mLs of water, which is equal to 83L.

Maybe you also need a bit of extra weight on the counterweight container because it said "a little push"?, so fill the 20 jug 4 times and the 5 jug once and dump it all in =P

[Guest]

Now, what powered the electric scale?

TRUE!

but im with the urination plan!

[Guest]

You bring your fox, chicken, and grain to a sheer cliff face. The path takes you to a spot halfway up, and at the top is the market where you want to sell them. The cliff has a pulley mechanism with a basket to bring up you and your goods, and a counterweight container to be filled with water, along with a warning: "Fill the counterweight with too little water and you'll go crashing down. Fill it with too much water and you'll be hurled up out of control. Fill it just right, and a small push will take you safely to the top. Be sure you're balanced before releasing the brakes! The empty counterweight container weighs just as much as the empty basket." You weigh yourself and your goods on an electric scale and it reads 83 kg, and runs out of power and shuts down immediately afterward. There is a 20 L jug and a 5 L jug and a waterfall to fill them with. How do you get up the cliff? (Remember from the previous two encounters that you're a bit of a wise-a**.)

being the wise a** that I am... I'd find another way up the cliff face.

we don't know enough information here to accurately fill the counter balance bucket. I am envisioning that I am standing at the edge of a cliff, the pulley is at the top (or even above the top, so that we don't spill over before getting out), and the bucket for me, as well as the bucket for the counter-balance are at the same level. If I were to fill the counter balance bucket to match my weight, I would not go anywhere at all after pushing it off the end. It would have to be heavier. But the higher I go, the less "power" it has over me, and I would eventually slow to a stop - so we'd need to know a specific height to have a factual mathematical solution.

however, if you want to negate physics and you don't want the smart a** answer above:

water has a density of "1". That is:

1 gram per cubic centimeter - that is, each cubic centimeter of water weighs exactly one gram. But we aren't measuring our volume with cubic centimeters are we? It just so happens that one cubic centimeter is equivalent to one milliliter. so each milliliter weighs one gram. but we cant measure in milliliters. that is okay. 1000 grams equals one Kg. 1000 milliliters equals one liter. so... one liter (of water) weighs one kilo gram.

now... assuming that the 83 kg is the true weight, and the scale didn't fail before giving the proper weight, we fill the 20 liter jug 4 times and empty it into the bucket. then we fill the 5 liter jug one time and empty it into the bucket. The counter balance bucket now has 85 Kg of water in it, should be just enough to get you moving up the face of the cliff. Whether or not it will take us far enough is unclear in the wording. We don't know how tall the cliff is (nor do I know the math right off hand to be able to figure that ).

[Guest]

being the wise a** that I am... I'd find another way up the cliff face.

we don't know enough information here to accurately fill the counter balance bucket. I am envisioning that I am standing at the edge of a cliff, the pulley is at the top (or even above the top, so that we don't spill over before getting out), and the bucket for me, as well as the bucket for the counter-balance are at the same level. If I were to fill the counter balance bucket to match my weight, I would not go anywhere at all after pushing it off the end. It would have to be heavier. But the higher I go, the less "power" it has over me, and I would eventually slow to a stop - so we'd need to know a specific height to have a factual mathematical solution.

however, if you want to negate physics and you don't want the smart a** answer above:

water has a density of "1". That is:

1 gram per cubic centimeter - that is, each cubic centimeter of water weighs exactly one gram. But we aren't measuring our volume with cubic centimeters are we? It just so happens that one cubic centimeter is equivalent to one milliliter. so each milliliter weighs one gram. but we cant measure in milliliters. that is okay. 1000 grams equals one Kg. 1000 milliliters equals one liter. so... one liter (of water) weighs one kilo gram.

now... assuming that the 83 kg is the true weight, and the scale didn't fail before giving the proper weight, we fill the 20 liter jug 4 times and empty it into the bucket. then we fill the 5 liter jug one time and empty it into the bucket. The counter balance bucket now has 85 Kg of water in it, should be just enough to get you moving up the face of the cliff. Whether or not it will take us far enough is unclear in the wording. We don't know how tall the cliff is (nor do I know the math right off hand to be able to figure that ).

perhaps I was a bit off there. hmm...

*wishes the edit button was constantly available*

reverting back to some old math, it looks like I was mistaken. the higher I go actually, the less weight the bucket needs in order to take me to the top - so filling it to 85 Kg might send me flying if the cliff is too high. I would have to take on additional weight as I went up, in order to balance out. hmmm.

well now I know that it will indeed take me to the top though, and a 2kg difference isn't too entirely much to start out with - it would be a slow start, and pick up speed as it moves down, and I move up.

[Guest]

i would call a chopper in because i'm too lazy to read the puzzle part.

[Guest]

I'm pretty sure this is right, I don't know that it's the answer your looking for though because it's not really "wise a**" enough.

Using the You put 85 Liters (Kg) of water in the counter weight. You need the counter weight to be slightly heaver or else you won't move.

[Guest]

You bring your fox, chicken, and grain to a sheer cliff face. The path takes you to a spot halfway up, and at the top is the market where you want to sell them. The cliff has a pulley mechanism with a basket to bring up you and your goods, and a counterweight container to be filled with water, along with a warning: "Fill the counterweight with too little water and you'll go crashing down. Fill it with too much water and you'll be hurled up out of control. Fill it just right, and a small push will take you safely to the top. Be sure you're balanced before releasing the brakes! The empty counterweight container weighs just as much as the empty basket." You weigh yourself and your goods on an electric scale and it reads 83 kg, and runs out of power and shuts down immediately afterward. There is a 20 L jug and a 5 L jug and a waterfall to fill them with. How do you get up the cliff? (Remember from the previous two encounters that you're a bit of a wise-a**.)

How about being a wise guy who doesn't mind leaving the next guy with only the 20L jug?

Fill the Counterweight basket with 85 kilos (4 20L, & 1 5L), then fill up the 5L bucket approximately halfway (a little more, rather than a little less) and take it with you to the basket with all your goods. When you release the brake and start going down (hopefully not at lightning speed since you're relatively close to the same weight) pour out small amounts of the bucket until you begin evening out and eventually going up!

[Guest]

Let's list what is given in the puzzle that is available to you:

a fox,

a chicken,

a bag of grain,

shoelaces (one with poultry spittle),

a 20-litre jug,

a 5-litre jug, and

an adequate supply of water.

In addition, you might be able to portage the row boat and oars to the cliff,

but as you don't like unnecessary extra work, it won't figure into your answer to the

problem.

The fox, chicken and bag of grain need be undamaged and kept as they are what you are bringing to the market to sell.

A litre of water is (very close to) 1 kilogram. Emptying the 20-litre jug four times and the 5-litre jug twice into the counterweight container will then equal (very close to) 90 kg.

Refill the 5-litre jug. Then get in the basket. The balance between the the two containers of the cliff-side elevator should be about 88 kgs. (your and your goods wieght + the filled 5-litre jug) and the counterweight container of 90 kgs. A difference of only 2kgs. (Should be even less of a difference as the jug itself probably weighs around a kilo.)

Do you remember that you have a shoestring? You should have two. Twine them together to make a good short cord. Then tie one end of the cord to the basket and one end to the counterweight container. Use a good hitch knot. When you release the brake you should see you have replaced it with another -- the shoestring cord. Pour water into the counterweight container until the tension on the shoestring cord is virtually gone. Then unhitch the cord, and with a small push and you should have a gentle ride up to the market place.