Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Mess at the Marrakesh Market

Three boxes of fruit have been mislabeled at the Marrakesh Market. One box contains just apples, one contains just oranges, and one contains a mixture of both. However, instead of the correct labels "apples", "oranges", and "apples and oranges," wrong English label was placed on each box. How can you re-label the boxes correctly if you are only allowed to take and look at just one piece of fruit from just one of the boxes?

(this puzzle is adapted from the book "World's Best Logic Puzzles" by Seven Treasures Publication.)

Submit your answer on our Family Puzzle Marathon site. Solve three puzzles and get a prize!

4 comments:

Kim said...

All the boxes are labelled incorrectly - so I know the apples and oranges box is either apples or oranges. I pick a piece from that box and whatever it is, that's what I put on it. Say it was an apple.

If it was an apple, then I have two boxes left labelled Apple and Orange. The Orange Box is labelled incorrectly and must contain either oranges or apples and oranges. Since it's wrong, it must be Apples and Oranges.

And that leaves the final box as Oranges.

The others are labelled apples and oranges - the one labelled with the fruit I just picked

Kim said...

(sorry about that extraneous last sentence)

Maria said...

Kim gets her first point! Two more and she will receive a beautiful mug from TheMathMom. Those who already won it, loved the size, color and matte feel of the surface. Plus, it will remind you to check for new puzzles every time you take a sip.

Back to the apples and oranges.
The solution that Kim proposed is the only valid solution. We have to check. Right?
Picking up from the Apples or Oranges box will lead to some ambivalence regarding the content of other boxes. So we would need to do another try, that the seller at the Market would not allow.

New puzzle tomorrow.

Maria said...

This is the very first puzzle that characters of the Spanish "Fermat's Room" thriller have to solve in order to save their lives.

Click to read more about this movie and other math thrills.

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