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Old 04-09-2006, 02:35 PM
ilya ilya is offline
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Upchucking the boogie
Posts: 7,848
Default Re: my solution - a little more elegant I believe

[ QUOTE ]
Durron's answer was perfect, well done.

Here's another way to skin the cat, if 4 on 4 doesn't balance then for the second step do this:

I will label the balls like this at this point -

4E
4H
4L

E - even (the ones that were off the scale in step 1 and are therefore fine)
H - even or maybe heavy
L - even or maybe light

I just find this a little easier to follow then 123456...


Put on the scales 2H and 1L on each side.

If they balance then it's one of 2L that are off the scale ... easy.
If they don't balance then you've narrowed it down to 2H from the side that was heavier and 1L from the other side, weigh the 2H heads up against each other, if they balance it's the L, if not then the heavier side is it.


When I first solved this my second step was to weigh 3H and 2L against 1H and 4E. That worked of course but my new solution is cleaner.

Cheers.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's lovely.
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