Three married couples went on vacation together. They took two cars: a two-seater Ferrari and a family size Toyota Corolla. On the way back, the Toyota Corolla got stuck and all six people found themselves on the road with a two seater car two hours away from home. What to do? Car rental or AAA is not an option in puzzles. Someone has to drive back and forth in two-seater Ferrari to bring everyone back home. Everyone in this group has a drivers license.
The problem is that after all the vacation adventures all three husbands are extremely jealous. None of them would let his wife be in the presence of the other men unless some other woman is also present. How could they all get home?
Assume that family names are: Smith, Jones and Gabrielli.
Enter your thoughts on our Family Puzzle Marathon page. Be first to solve three puzzles and get a prize!
See TheMathMom presentation:
Popular Puzzles
-
This is an easy puzzle that you all are welcome to share with your kids and friends: Put addition signs between the digits 88888888 to get ...
-
This puzzle arrived via email from one of the fans. Can you move just one match to make this statement correct? There is more than one sol... -
Here is a number magic trick that came to me via mail. All of you, math detectives, are invited to unveil its magic with your logic. Tak... -
This came in a magic trick box that our daughter picked for her birthday. Exhausted from all the Bar Mitzvah preparations for her older b... -
This came from my son who got it from someone else at school. I solved it quickly and texted him the answer just as I was getting into ... -
Magic squares are tables of numbers where sums of every row, every column and both diagonals produce the same number. No, they were not in... -
My daughter's school teacher is showing kids some number mysticism. She told them to take any 3 digit number, e.g.793. Scramble its digi... -
We are done with the winter Olympics and now are looking forward to the Oscar's entertainment. As we saw in the previous puzzle , t... -
I found this puzzle in a tiny but mighty pocket puzzle book named Optical Illusions. Suppose the yellow billiard ball strikes the bumper a... -
You have 42 parrots and 7 cages of various sizes. Lock all the parrots inside the cages so that no cage is empty and each cage contains an ...
12 comments:
Cool puzzle! Let me give this a shot:
It looks like the basic rule is to always have at least two girls on one side (or the girl has to be with her own husband)
Two husbands get into the car and drive over (say Smith and Jones). Mr. Smith leaves Mr. Jones home and drives back. Mr. Smith and Mr. Gabrielli then drive over. Mr. Smith leaves Mr. Gabrielli home and drives back.
Next Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Gabrielli take the car, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Jones leaves Mrs. Gabrielli home and drives back.
Mrs. Jones is okay since Mrs. Smith is with her.
Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Jones then drive home and Mrs. Jones is dropped off and Mrs. Smith drives back to pick up her husband and both go home (with the Ferrari!)
Smith and Smith wife go home.
Smith wife returns w/ car.
Jones and Jones wife go home.
Jones wife returns w/ car.
Gabrielli and G wife go home.
Gabrielli wife returns w/ car.
Smith wife and Jones wife go home.
Gabrielli (husband) returns w/ car.
Gabrielli and Gabrielli wife go home.
Both of you are absolutely right.
Assuming that each car ride immediately follows another and no reason for jealousy arises while drivers are swapped, these guys would need a minimum of nine car rides.
In the W.'s scenario, there is one suspicious moment when on the 6th car ride Ms Jones drives back leaving Mr & Ms Gabrielli as well as Mr Jones at home. Theoretically, this could make Mr Gabrielli very jealous as Mr Jones could flirt with Ms Gabrielli in the absence of his wife. However, we could assume that when they arrive, they all go into their own homes. So, Gabriellis may not be under the same roof as Mr Jones.
So, both answers could be considered valid.
As they are different, both W. and Phil get a puzzle point!
New puzzle tomorrow.
Mr and mrs smith go first.
Mr smith comes back.
Mr smith and mr jones go next.
Mr jones comes back.
Mr and mrs jones go next.
Mr jones comes back.
Mr jones and mr gabrielli go next.
Mr gabrielli comes back.
Mr and mrs gabrielli go next.
mr
mr j
Please ignore the last two lines in my response.
Phil - please email me your snail mail address and I will send you a prize! maria-at-marialando-dot-com
K K - your answer is right, but it seems to be rather close to Phil's answer. I can't give you a puzzle point. But I will, if you or anyone else will come up with a solution for this specific situation:
Every time Ferrari riders come to either of two stops (place on the road where Toyota stuck or their homes), all the arriving people get out of the car and spend some time with the people at this stop, before somebody is heading back. In that situation all of the above solutions would not be considered valid. For example in Phil's solution after the third ride, Mr and Ms Jones join Mr Smith at home, that would make Mr Jones extremely jealous. Can you create driving arrangements for this case?
This is what I'm coming up with at first go.
Mr Jones and Mr Gabrielli go first.
Mr Jones comes back.
Mr Jones and Mr Smith go next.
Mr Jones comes back.
Mrs Smith and Mrs Gabrielli go next.
Mr and Mrs Smith come back.
Mrs Jones and Mrs Smith go next.
Mr Gabrielli comes back. (Only the three women are at home now)
Mr Smith and Mr Gabrielli go next.
Mr Gabrielli comes back.
Mr Jones and Mr Gabrielli go next. (Everybody is at home now)
I believe this is valid!
K K - you can be trusted with assigning seats in the US senate.
Thanks! :o)
Did I just get my first puzzle point?
Yes! See your name in the right column among the Best Puzzle Solvers. Just two more puzzles and you will get a prize.
Why not let mrs Jones first take mrs Gabrielli back, return for mrs Smith, come back for mr Jones. Then mr Jones comes back for mr Gabrielli, returning afterwards for mr Smith.
That way any single male or woman is always left with two others of the opposite sex. The only time any male is left alone with any woman it's with his own wife.
Mr Smith would die of jealousy if his wife will stay with him as well as Mr Gabrielli and Mr Jones, while their wives are driving.
See discussion above.
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.