I can't take credit for this. It was submitted to a quiz page on the CBC's (Canadian Broadcasting Co) website by Professor Maria Klawe of the Computer Science department at the University of British Columbia. But I thought our group would enjoy it.
Remember when a bar of plain milk chocolate was scored to allow you to break it evenly into smaller pieces?
What is the smallest number of breaks needed to divide a 4 by 8 chocolate bar into single squares, where each break splits any one of the pieces along an original horizontal or vertical line of the bar? Your answer should explain why your number is the smallest possible.
The answer is to try and divert you from the obvious, but I don't see why his solution doesn't work, nicely done bob. 32 bars is done by 8x3 little bars. seperate each of the 8 rows first gives you seve breaks then divide the remaining rows individually into the one third chunk. At two breaks a row, and eight rows, you get 16 more breaks. 16+7=23 breaks in all.
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Posted by Jon
on 2003-04-11 08:36:23 |