Friday, December 11, 2009

A Fairytale Puzzle

A wicked witch turned a handsome prince into a frog, and threw the prince-frog into the cold and dark bottom of the well. She then made the bucket rope disappear.



A beautiful princess-to-be was passing by and heard the croaking of the frog. She thought that he might be a prince and decided to get him out. What length of a rope does she need to find, if she can see that the diameter of a cylinder where rope rolls is 5" and she remembers that it usually takes 10 rotations to get the bucket from the bottom all the way up?

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

2 comments:

Kim said...

The length of rope to go around the cylinder once is pi*d or approximately 5"*3.1415 (or 15.7"). To go around 10 times would be 157" (or a little over 13'), plus she should leave a little extra slack and the knot as shown in the picture if she's going to use the bucket!

I hope it's really a prince!

Maria said...

So, she got a 14' rope, pulled out a frog, kissed it, and it turned into a prince. And they lived happily ever after.
All thanks to Kim.

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