I've designed a little math adventure for you guys. It consists of three increasingly (hopefully) difficult challenges, with a little story to go along with it. If you guys solve a challenge you'll get the next one. Here's the first part:
-------------------------------------------
You've found out about a secret pirate's treasure buried on a desert island. You've gathered a crew of four of the gnarliest pirates you know, Alan, Bob, Charlie, and Devon. Together you head to the local tavern to purchase the map to the buried treasure from an old hag.
The hag has three identical boxes in front of her, and explains that in one there is two pieces of the map, in the other two blank pieces of paper, and in the last one there is one piece of the map, and a blank piece of paper. She also explains that the boxes are normally unlabeled to keep thieves at bay, but since she's about to sell you one of them she has put the right label on each one.
The deal is almost done, and you've forked over the money for the box with the two map pieces when Alan stumbles over and spills his ale all over the old hag. In anger she re-arranges all the labels and exclaims: "There! I've jumbled all the labels up! Now you won't know which is which!"
You exhort her to tell you which is the correct one, but she only says "I'll let you pick out a random piece of paper without looking, be it map piece or blank, out one of these boxes, and look at it, and then put it back."
"But", she says with a gleam in her eye, "you'll have to pay me 1 gold coin for each attempt. When you're satisfied you may take one of the boxes."
You know you need the box with the two map pieces, half a map is no good.
"I've made it even harder for you, for your friend's stupidity, I've made sure no box has the correct label." she adds.
You throw an angry glance at Alan.
Can you choose the correct box, and how much do you have to pay the old hag to look into the boxes?
-------------------------------------------
You've found out about a secret pirate's treasure buried on a desert island. You've gathered a crew of four of the gnarliest pirates you know, Alan, Bob, Charlie, and Devon. Together you head to the local tavern to purchase the map to the buried treasure from an old hag.
The hag has three identical boxes in front of her, and explains that in one there is two pieces of the map, in the other two blank pieces of paper, and in the last one there is one piece of the map, and a blank piece of paper. She also explains that the boxes are normally unlabeled to keep thieves at bay, but since she's about to sell you one of them she has put the right label on each one.
The deal is almost done, and you've forked over the money for the box with the two map pieces when Alan stumbles over and spills his ale all over the old hag. In anger she re-arranges all the labels and exclaims: "There! I've jumbled all the labels up! Now you won't know which is which!"
You exhort her to tell you which is the correct one, but she only says "I'll let you pick out a random piece of paper without looking, be it map piece or blank, out one of these boxes, and look at it, and then put it back."
"But", she says with a gleam in her eye, "you'll have to pay me 1 gold coin for each attempt. When you're satisfied you may take one of the boxes."
You know you need the box with the two map pieces, half a map is no good.
"I've made it even harder for you, for your friend's stupidity, I've made sure no box has the correct label." she adds.
You throw an angry glance at Alan.
Can you choose the correct box, and how much do you have to pay the old hag to look into the boxes?
