Cheap Charlie likes to smoke cigars.
He cannot afford cigars so he puts five stubs (which he finds) together to make one full cigar.

One day Charlie was lucky to get 25 stubs.

How many cigars could he smoke?

For a bonus point; how many cigars could he have smoked if he had only found 20 stubs?

With 25 stubs he could smoke 6 cigars, as it has been said here before.

With 20 stubs, he could smoke  4 cigars, and would be left with 4 stubs. He could then go to a friend, borrow a stub, make a fifth cigar, smoke it, and return the stub to the friend.

So, the answers are 6 (with no trickery) and 5 (with a little trickery)!

Posted by e.g. on 2004-03-12 12:13:56