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Marbles Bonanza (Posted on 2003-09-08) Difficulty: 4 of 5
You have an empty container, and an infinite number of marbles, each numbered with an integer from 1 to infinity.

At the start of the minute, you put marbles 1 - 10 into the container, then remove one of the marbles and throw it away. You do this again after 30 seconds, then again in 15 seconds, and again in 7.5 seconds. You continuosly repeat this process, each time after half as long an interval as the time before, until the minute is over.

Since this means that you repeated the process an infinite number of times, you have "processed" all your marbles.

How many marbles are in the container at the end of the minute if for every repetition (numbered N)

A. You remove the marble numbered (10 * N)

B. You remove the marble numbered (N)

See The Solution Submitted by levik    
Rating: 3.6154 (13 votes)

Comments: ( Back to comment list | You must be logged in to post comments.)
a functional equivalent | Comment 38 of 87 |
within each iteration, you are adding nine marbles (adding ten and removing one). Don't even consider the label - that is something that is purely added to create the paradox. The sum of an infinite number of nines can't be zero - if the error isn't in the nomenclature that's fine - but its there somewhere. Possibly you're trying to justify that any marble "n" would've been taken out on the n'th iteration and then assuming that means that you take out all the marbles. Or maybe that once you've taken out all the marbles that there aren't still more left. I don't know where the misleading assumption is, but it is definitely there somewhere.
  Posted by Cory Taylor on 2003-09-15 13:38:34
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