An ancient balance was found along with 5 weights.

Objects placed on one side of the balance could be counter-balanced by a weight on the other side of the balance to determine the object's weight. Also, the object and a weight(s) could be placed on one side of the balance and counter balanced to determine its weight, if necessary.

By using only these 5 weights, the ancients were able to determine the weight of objects weighting 1, 2, 3, ..., 120, 121 grams. What are the 5 weights that the archeologists found?

The required 5 weights found by the archeologists (in grams) are 1, 3, 9, 27 and 81.

Posted by K Sengupta on 2008-03-21 15:28:49