Four friends are gathered at a pub. They have in front of them two 8-pint trankards full of beer, and an empty 3-pint mug.

Since they are still sober, they quickly calculate that they have 16 pints for the four of them, which comes out to an even 4 pints per person.

Can they divide the beer equally with the containers they have available?

I found this one somwhere on the net, and quite frankly, it stumped me... I don't have a solution to it, so don't expect it to just appear suddenly :)

Thinking out loud here, the key seems to be to getting people to drink their share either all at once, or in parts of 1 and 3 pints.

Once we are left with 3 pints, we can no longer divide the beer accurately, since there is no container less than 3 pt.

Posted by levik on 2002-06-12 10:31:02