Ths is a simple test of spatial IQ....
 

Or I guess it is. I was watching "Die Hard With A Vengeance" the other night being bored as hell and having seen only small parts of the thing over the years. So I thought I'd just finish up something started and never completed.

A lot of you might have seen this flick where Bruce and Samuel L. encounter a puzzle set up by the terrorists they were pursuing. A pair of bottles were left at a fountain, one a 3 gallon and the other a 5. The challenge was to fill ONE bottle with Exactly 4 gal. and place it on a scale. If it didn't weigh 4 gallons worth, they get blown up (typical Willis or Gibson film)

That's about when a commercial break came and I left the room. When I got back, they were on to something else. I didn't see the answer. But anyone who saw this knows the solution and I imagine this has been circulating around middle school math classes for years.

I was irritated and set out to figure it for myself. I'll admit while making a snack and having some wine, it took some time to figure it out. I'm guessing 3 minutes. Not much of an SAT score for ol' Zeke, huh?

But, for those of you that never saw this or have never seen the exercise, give it a shot. Come back with your time, but leave out the answer until the thread gets a chance. If 's that simple, then have a good laugh on me.

Then take it to your wife. I find many women to not be too spatially oriented. I'm in the replacement window business (such as it is these days) and 90% of my customers are women. It gets interesting sometimes dealing with sizes and shapes (not the women ;)). I do a lot of mock ups to show relationships for the spatially challenged. Especially windows that project from the wall.

But, I digress. Do the math.

Women (in my experience) make the best architects & interior designers. The industry just happens to be an old fraternal one that's largely populated by grouchy old men, but that's changing. Fully half of my graduating class was women, surprisingly - and this was 10 years ago.

I think guys just happen to handle the "construction management" aspects of the business a bit better (they tend to have a bit of a stronger stomach for dealing with the "head-butting" sessions that inevitably arise between contractors/owners' reps and themselves).

But as far as raw design skill/spatial sensitivity? Women clearly seem to do better.

removed answer

Good work on the math Red. Bad work on the reading comprehension. :D

You might want to edit that post a little. SmileWavy

It took me four minutes to comprehend Reds post:)

Aught times aught is aught...

red, how do you pour exactly one gallon into the five?

When you fill the 5 with the 3 the second time, only 2 fit, leaving you with 1 left over, which you pour into the 5.

About 1 minute for me

Pour from the full five gallon bottle into the empty three gallon bottle until it is full.
Empty the three gallon bottle and pour the remaining two gallons from the five bottle into the empty three.
Mark that level at 'two'.

Pour back into the empty five.
Add water into the three gallon bottle up to the 'two' mark. Add to the five. Four gallons!


KT

Well, since he blew it on the instructions, I'll offer my, and slightly different solution:

Pour 3 into the 5 and mark the line.

Fill the 5 with another full 3 which should leave one left in the 3.

pour out of the five until the line is reached and pour in the leftover one gal. in the 3 gal. jug.

Just a backwards way of Red's solution involving a mark. If you didn't have a way of making the mark (in the movie there were two people, so I figured one of them would hold the mark), Red's solution is better. It's better all the way around, just makes one fill the three gal. 3 times whereas my solution requires only 2 fills. Remember, the action needed to be done in the movie within a time frame.

Does anyone remember how Bruce and Sam did it?

Milt is trying to save water, by not dumping the excess water on the gorund. Typical Kalifornia Liberal puke type of stuff.

See, and I thought of a solution in under a minute, but it required a third container of at least 2 gallons (size is not terribly important).

Fill 5 gallon container, pour what will fit in 3 gallon container, leaving two gallons in 5 gallon container.

Pour those 2 gallons into third container.

Repeat.

LOL, never crossed my mind. the newspaper says youz guys in Vegas are paying 3 times as much as I was living over there in '94. Water and electricity were dirt cheap living next to Lake Mead. Now that the lake is a mud hole, things are getting tough for all of us.

Might as well talk about something since ol' red spilled the water, er..... beans.

Pour from five into three,
dump the three gallons,
pour the two gallons from the five into the three,
refill the five gallon and pour one gallon into the three,
The five now contains three gallons. and the five gallon contains four.

Fans of these type teasers would enjoy car talk puzzlers.

That'll work. :D

You, too, sir, must read more carefully. Willis and Jackson had 2 containers, that's it. Solve the problem one more way under that premise and you take home the cake.

Yes, I realize that my solution did not fit the problem exactly.

It was still all I could think of.

As has been shown, it wasn't the only solution, but yeah, sorry, my bad...:cool:

My solution was

Fill 5 jug

Pour into 3 jug leaving 2

Empty 3 jug and pour remaining 2 into 3 jug

Fill 5 jug again and pour what will fit into the 3 jug (1 gallon) leaving 4 in the 5

Eliminates Legions need for 3rd jug

Best solution http://www.914club.com/bbs2/style_em...ult/clap56.gif


KT

that movie was terrible