You have five different jugs, without any marks at all, with capacities of 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 litres. Initially, the 3, 5 and 7-jugs are completely filled with liquid (so we have 15 litres of the liquid; in the diagram below, an "x" stands for 1 litre) and the other two are empty. The jugs are arranged in the circular manner shown below, which can't be changed:

                           | |
                         +-+ +-+
                         | o o |
                         | o o | 
                         +-----+
              | |                        | | 
            +-+ +-+                  +---+ +---+
            |  x  |                  | x x x x |
            | x x |                  |  x x x  |
            +-----+                  +---------+

                   | |           | |                   
                +--+ +--+     +--+ +--+
                | x x x |     | o o o |
                |  x x  |     | o o o |
                +-------+     +-------+

The goal is to achieve 3 litres in each of the 5 jugs, only by pouring liquid from one jug into an adjacent one. (That is, at any time, you can pour liquid from the 3-jug only into the 4-jug or to the 5-jug; or from the 7-jug only into the 4-jug or to the 6-jug, etc...)

(In reply to re(3): To Hugo - I missed what Charlie pointed out!!! by Hugo)

Hugo, this has been discussed for much time. All that have been saying (but forget to state in this one) is that solutions obtained with computer should not be posted to make the challenging fair to those who doesnīt know how to programme them. (of course I iknow the advantage of using computers).

But, I didnīt state this, and Iīm certain that Charlie made an excellent  job. But what if without computer? 

Posted by pcbouhid on 2005-08-18 21:24:07