You have a 12 litre jug, an 8 litre jug, and a 5 litre jug. None of the jugs have any markings on them. The 12 litre jug is full, and the other two are empty.

How can you divide the 12 litres of water in such a way that two of the jugs (the 12 litre and the 8 litre jugs) have exactly 6 litres of water in them, and the third (the 5 litre jug) is empty?

Since there are many of us working on the same problem, and we all have these three jugs,  I would voluntarily give one of my 8 litre jugs to someone else and he could just pour the water from his twelve litre jug into the two 8 litre jugs until they were exactly the same level.  There you go one pouring.

(somehow I do not think that satisfies the solution though, but I like it simple)

edit:  I know we are really not allowed to fill two buckets until they are even, (I was kidding), but after reading so many posts in which people do that and think it is a legitimate solution I wanted to clarify. 

Edited on April 6, 2005, 5:53 pm

Posted by john on 2005-04-06 17:03:21