You have an infinite amount of timers, each is an hour long (they do not have dials on telling you how long they've been going - they just beep when the time is up). You can set it to double speed at any time, but you cannot set it back to normal speed (eg if you set it to double speed at the start it will last 30 minutes.

Using each timer only once, is it possible to time exactly 25 minutes?

If it is, what is the smallest number of timers you need to do this, and the quickest time you can acheive it?

take two timers and activate them simultaneously. after ten minutes, set one for double speed. When this clock beeps, 35 min have gone by, you now have a 25 minute timer on the other clock.

Posted by frank on 2005-06-19 19:44:28