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SAP puzzle---A special mouse

Jason
edited June 2009 in General
There are 12 mice, only one of them has a different speed to eat cake. How many cakes do you need to find out the special mouse? How about 5 cakes? What if only 4 cakes?
(Note: when you let mouse A eat one cake, B eat another, if A finishes firstly, than A is faster than B.)
https://forums.sdn.sap.com/forum.jspa?forumID=410

Comments

  • Ether
    edited June 2009
    Well, since the question is awfully vague, I'll give it my best guess.

    4 Cakes.

    Step 1: Make 3 groups of 4 mice each. Feed two of the groups cakes.
    If both groups finish at the same time, take the group with no cake and note down the time it took for the two groups to finish their cake.
    Otherwise, take the fastest group of 4 and note down the time it took for the slower group to finish.

    Step 2: Make 2 groups of 2 mice each. Give a cake to one of the groups and record the time.
    If it takes 1/2 of the time you noted in step 1, take the 2 mice that did not get cake this round.
    If it takes less than 1/2 the time you noted in step 1, take the mice that did get cake.

    Step 3: Give one of the mice a cake.
    If it finishes the cake in 1/4 of the time you recorded in step 1, then take the other mouse.
    If it finishes the cake in less than 1/4 of the time you recorded in step 1, then it is the fastest mouse.


    I'm doing Co-Op at SAP/BOBJ right now, so I can be on that forum answering brainteasers and it looks like I'm working :P.

    Edit: Too bad the forum doesn't have spoiler tags.
  • lazyGUY
    edited June 2009
    that sounds about right^^^
  • siuying
    edited June 2009
    i need to see this in action to understand.. @_@

    lol... funny that when i first saw this post.. i wanted to delete it as it looked strangely like a spam post.. but then i wanted to know the answer so i decided to leave it.. :tongue: and the first person i thought of to answer this was ether and he did!!
  • Magnificent_BastardMagnificent_Bastard
    edited June 2009
    Can't you just cut ONE cake into like, 12 different slices? Why is it necessary to have the mouse eat an entire cake to determine how fast it can eat it?
  • online predatoronline predator
    edited June 2009
    Considering there's no other restrictions mentioned in the problem, how about placing all 12 around one cake. 11 of the rats eat at the same pace. The fast one should be easily noticable by observation.

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