This classic was written by Dr Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, author of the Alice books.

A captive queen and her son and daughter were shut up in the top room of a very high tower. Outside their window was a pulley with a rope around it, and a basket fastened to each end of the rope of equal weight. They managed to escape with the help of this and a weight they found in the room, quite safely. It would have been dangerous for any of them to come down if they weighed 15 lbs more than the content of the other basket, for they would do so too quick, and they also managed not to weigh less either.

The one basket coming down would naturally of course draw the other basket up.

The queen weighed 195 lbs, daughter 105, son 90, and the weight 75 lbs.

How did they all escape safely?

(In reply to Solution -- not too tough by Lawrence)

Easy because I didnt' visualize the problem. It has to be up for one to get in, and they get in one at a time, and the seesaw effect of getting in and getting out. This one was good, and similar to another I have seen before. Didn't read the whole thing, just saw weight in first which is obvious because a person in first would die, so here goes.

1 Weight in weight goes down -- QDS/W
2 Son in, son down, weight up -- QDW/S
3 Take weight out, send Daughter down, son up -- QSW/D
4 Son gets out, daughter gets out, weight goes in and down,
so QS/DW
5. Daughter gets in with weight, queen gets in up top, and now she's down. DSW/Q
6. Daughter gets out, queen gets off, weight comes down. DS/QW
7. Son gets in, weight up, son down -- DW/SQ
8. Daughter takes weight out, and hops in, so the son comes up. SW/DQ
9. Son gets out, daughter gets out, weight in, weight to the ground. S/QDW
10. Son gets in, weight comes out, son gets out. W/SDQ

LOOK OUT! The weight comes crashing down. All three knew that was gonna happen, and stayed clear. Now what to do for transportation? Did anyone else have flashbacks of being a kid and the heavy kid got off the seesaw and blammo?

Posted by Lawrence on 2003-08-27 13:21:31