You have an infinite amount of timers, each is an hour long (they do not have dials on telling you how long they've been going - they just beep when the time is up). You can set it to double speed at any time, but you cannot set it back to normal speed (eg if you set it to double speed at the start it will last 30 minutes.
Using each timer only once, is it possible to time exactly 25 minutes?
If it is, what is the smallest number of timers you need to do this, and the quickest time you can acheive it?
(In reply to
re(2): Closer and closer by Brian Smith)
Agreed. I'm just wondering if anyone can come up with a way to get N digits in F(N) time, where F(N) is bounded as N goes to infinity. Depending on the method, I'm not sure that it even makes sense to talk about convergence. But that is about the best I could hope for. I think your answer is as good as it is going to get
re(3): Closer and closer
