You must use a gold chain to pay a worker for seven days of service. The chain has seven links on it, and you agree on a price of one link per day.

However, the worker will not work without getting the day's pay up front, and you do not wish to give him more than his due for the fear that he will take it and leave. Therefore, you realised that you must cut some of the links on the chain.

What is the smallest number of links you will need to cut, so that you can make sure that the worker receives one link for every day that he works, but not more?

very old one and very easy one but yes a good one

just 2 breaks
1st break after 1 link
2nd break after 2 links

day 1 1
day 2 2 (i.e take back 1)
day 3 1+2
day 4 4
day 5 4+1
day 6 4+2
day 7 4+2+1

Posted by Govind on 2002-05-05 07:43:52