Search results for: “geek challenge”
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Geek Challenge: New Year’s Beeramid by the Numbers
During a New Year's Eve party, a simple pyramid was constructed by standing 3 beer cans on a table in a triangle, and then placing a single can on the top center of the three. The pyramid was expanded by expanding the triangular base to 3 cans on each side, adding 2 more cans to the…
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Geek Challenge Results: Deer Dilemma
We didn’t receive a lot of reader-feedback to last month's Geek Challenge. Some questioned the assumptions involved, and some guesses were taken. Here is my analysis of the problem: The Deer Dilemma asks about the probability of collision between a car traveling an unspecified speed and a number of deer traveling at unspecified speed and…
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Geek Challenge: Deer Dilemma
A state forest is square and 6 miles on each side, and known to be home to a population of 1,000 deer. A road runs straight through the forest (not diagonally) and is silently traveled by an electric car whose driver is oblivious to the deer. Since it is mating season, the deer are constantly…
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Geek Challenge Results: Movie Theater Teaser
Last month’s Geek Challenge asked where in line was the optimum place to stand such that your birthday matches the birthday of anyone in front of you, but that nobody in front of you has made the same match with someone in front of them. The problem is an optimization based on two competing priorities: …
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Geek Challenge: Movie Theater Teaser
A small movie theater has two movie screens. One theater is showing a hit action movie, and has sold out for the evening. The other screen is showing a comedy flop and has plenty of available seats. A crowd has gathered outside the box office disappointed they can’t get tickets to the action movie. Before…
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Geek Challenge Results: Summer Road Trip Riddle
The question posed during last month’s Geek Challenge was to determine how much it costs me in extra gas to drive to my summer road trip destination at a higher speed, and to express this cost measured against the time I save by driving there faster. I provided the following Fuel Mileage chart for reference:…
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Geek Challenge: Summer Road Trip Riddle
July is the heart of summer road trip season. And with gas at about $4 per gallon, that trip to the national park can be pretty expensive. So, this month’s geek challenge could help you optimize your trip. Everybody knows that at highway speeds the faster you drive, the lower your fuel mileage. Also, we…
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Geek Challenge Results: Off and Running
The Sam and Brenda race problem was a fun one to solve. Following simple Distance = Rate * Time methods, it is easy to get to 4 equations and 5 unknowns, which can leave you stuck because the problem doesn’t tell you, and you can never figure out either Sam or Brenda’s speed. However, applying…
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Geek Challenge: Off and Running
Sam and Brenda start running in opposite directions from opposite ends of a symmetrical race track, each running at a uniform speed, although not equal to each other. They first cross each other at a point 100 yards from Sam’s staring point. They cross again as Brenda has 40 yards to go before completing her…
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Geek Challenge Results: A Weighty Egg-sercise
I hope you had a good time hunting for the solution to the Easter Egg Stumper. The challenge was to most efficiently identify one peanut-butter Easter egg from a group of 11 identical chocolate eggs knowing only that the peanut-butter egg weighs differently, and having a traditional balance scale. Several people answered that it could…
