Vemuri's Brain Teaser-3

On 1st May, Mr. X arrived in a new city and was looking for a place to stay. He met a landlard who offered to rent his apartment at a reasonable price but wanted Mr. X to pay the rent on a daily basis. Mr. X had a silver bar of 31 inches and an inch of the silver bar was exactly equal to a day’s rent. He agreed to pay an inch of the silver bar towards the daily rent. Mr. X wanted to make minimum number of pieces of silver bar but did not want to pay any advance rent. How many pieces did he make?
(A)5 (B)8 (C)16 (D)20 (E)31

Replies

  • Dancer_Engineer
    Dancer_Engineer
    I tried, not getting a solution.
    Could you give some hint? 😁
  • mathbyvemuri
    mathbyvemuri
    Dancer_Engineer
    I tried, not getting a solution.
    Could you give some hint? 😁
    HINT:- Today he can give a piece worth a value of 1-day rent. Tomorrow, he can give a piece worth a value of 2-days rent and take back the piece given today, such that it counts for 2-days rent.👍
  • Anoop Kumar
    Anoop Kumar
    ans:5
    1,2,4,8,16 😎
  • mathbyvemuri
    mathbyvemuri
    Yes, as 'ianoop' said, 5-pieces is the answer.
    Beauty of math is illustrated in this problem.
    If Mr X cuts the silver bar of 31 inches in to the pieces with following sizes (in inches), it will result in minimum number of pieces- solution:
    1, 2, 4, 8, 16
    On day-1 Mr X gives 1-inch piece to the landlord
    On day-2 he gives 2-inch piece and takes back the 1-inch piece
    On day-3 he gives 1-inch piece in addition to the already given 2-inch piece, thus making it 3-inches in total
    On day-4 he gives 4-inch piece and takes back the 1-inch and 2-inch pieces
    On day-5 he gives 1-inch piece in addition to the already given 4-inch piece, thus making it 5-inches in total.
    This will continue till day-31.
    Hence a minimum of five pieces is enough
    Math logic:
    Any number up to 2n-1 can be represented by the combinations of the ‘n’ numbers: 2^0,2^1,2^2,...2n-1.
    Answer (A)

You are reading an archived discussion.

Related Posts

The biggest stumbling block for ISEET has been the opposition from the prestigious IITs. They had opposed the proposed inclusion of std. 12 board exam marks to determine the ranking...
Name: Abhay Kochar Engineering Trade: Magento commerce, Joomla CMS, Wordpress, PHP etc. Location: Nagpur Occupation: Founder/CEO @ WebGile Solutions Work Experience: Founder/ CEO: WebGile Solutions May-2012 till Date Founder/ CTO:...
I am developing an online leave management system, I dont know how can I send Email n notification to the administrator through the web application. anyone having idea do guide...
When you look at what surrounds you, you will agree that you've felt it your entire life that there is something wrong. Something terribly wrong. You just didn't know what...
Hi I am Sandeep Gupta. I am pusuing my B.Tech Last Sem. in cs from Singhania university, rajasthan. Along with I done JAVA TECHNOLOGY course from NIIT. Now days, I...