You have one hundred marbles, and an infinite supply of trash bags. If you were to put the marbles in the bags, so that no two bags had the same amount of marbles, what is the most bags that you could use?

This seems too simple but 14 should be the answer.

Here is my thought process.
The more marbles in each bag teh fewer the number of bags used, so we want ot minimize the number in each bag. I assume that we can't cut the marbles up.

So, what is the smallest number of marbles you an put in a bag? Zero, so leave the first bag empty. WHats the next smallest number? 1 so put on marble in the second bag. Proceed in this manner as long as you can. When you have just put 13 marbles in a bag you will see that you have 8 left. since you already have a bag with eight dump these into the bag with 13. and you are done. you ahve used 14 total bags.

Posted by FatBoy on 2003-09-12 08:25:54