Nov 28, 2023
This week's puzzler is an old one. I had to adapt this and make it shorter, so keep that in mind.
Here it is.
This fellow goes and buys himself a new house and he moves in before they have an opportunity to do any landscaping. So basically what he has is this beautiful house sitting on this lot with no grass.
And then he decides that his daughter's wedding is going to be at the house. But he didn't want to have the wedding on a bare dirt lot without grass.
So, he needs a lawn, really fast. But he can't afford to have the landscapers bring in sod for the whole lot. So he goes to the nursery and they tell him there's this new genetically engineered grass seed. And this stuff is so amazing, it doubles every day.
The guy at the nursery asks him how many square feet he had on the lot that needs grass. So, he tells the guy. And the salesman does some math and then says, "Okay, if you buy one seedling of this stuff, and plant it in the middle of your lot, in 30 days, you should have a complete lawn of grass."
So, the fellow says, "Well, the wedding is in two weeks, 15 days. So sell me two seedlings."
This guy figures, if one seedling will fill up the whole lawn in 30 days, then two seedlings will do the job in 15 days. This is his theory.
So the puzzler today is, is he right about this? Will this work?
Good luck.
Okay all.
Time for the answer to this mathematical, landscape architectural puzzler.
So, at first glance, it seems logical that this would work, right?
If one seedling will fill up the whole lawn in 30 days, then two seedlings will do the job in 15 days, right?
Seems like it makes sense.
However, it does not work. And here is why.
If he buys another seedling, the only this he gains by this is one day.
If he buys one, on day one he has one, and on day two, he has two. On day three he has four, if the two double.
But all he gains is one day so he'll have his grass in 29 days instead of 30 days.
Honestly, I'm not even sure this is right, to this day. But my brother thought it was right, so we are going with it.
Math is hard.