Saturday, January 5, 2013

4. Puzzles, 1000 apples in 10 boxes

How to Divide apples

An apple vendor has 1000 apples and 10 empty boxes. He asks his son to place all the 1000 apples in all the 10 boxes in such a manner that if he asks for any number of apples from 1 to 1000, his son should be able to pick them in terms of boxes. How did the son place all the apples among the 10 boxes, given that any number of apples can be put in one box.

Ans.

1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 489

Let's start from scratch.
• The apple vendor can ask for only 1 apple, so one box must contain 1 apple.
• He can ask for 2 apples, so one box must contain 2 apples.
He can ask for 3 apples, in that case box one and box two will add up to 3.
• He can ask for 4 apples, so one box i.e. third box must contain 4 apples.
• Now using box number one, two and three containing 1, 2 and 4 apples respectively, his son can give upto 7 apples. Hence, forth box must contain 8 apples.
• Similarly, using first four boxes containing 1, 2, 4 and 8 apples, his son can give upto 15 apples. Hence fifth box must contain 16 apples.
You must have noticed one thing till now that each box till now contains power of 2 apples. Hence the answer is 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 489. This is true for any number of apples, here in our case only upto 1000.

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