You have an electric car that you want to use to transport some batteries 1,000 miles. You have 3,000 batteries, but your car can only carry 1,000 of them at once. In addition, for each mile that it travels, the car will need to use up one battery in order to power itself.

How many unspent batteries will you be able to transfer to your destination?

I suspect that the solution is a lot like the solution to the inspector general problem, with the aides replaced by earlier incomplete trips and stockpiling batteries.

In that one, however, all of the supplies carried were consumed. In this one, some of the supplies need to be brought to the destination intact, if possible.

Posted by TomM on 2002-08-29 11:17:58