About Me

In writing the "About Me" portion of this blog I thought about the purpose of the blog - namely, preventing the growth of Socialism & stopping the Death Of Democracy in the American Republic & returning her to the "liberty to abundance" stage of our history. One word descriptions of people's philosophies or purposes are quite often inadequate. I feel that I am "liberal" meaning that I am broad minded, independent, generous, hospitable, & magnanimous. Under these terms "liberal" is a perfectly good word that has been corrupted over the years to mean the person is a left-winger or as Mark Levin more accurately wrote in his book "Liberty & Tyranny" a "statist" - someone looking for government or state control of society. I am certainly not that & have dedicated the blog to fighting this. I believe that I find what I am when I consider whether or not I am a "conservative" & specifically when I ask what is it that I am trying to conserve? It is the libertarian principles that America was founded upon & originally followed. That is the Return To Excellence that this blog is named for & is all about.

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Solution - Water Bucket Quiz

Thanks to everyone who participated in the subject quiz presented in the last post – the quiz certainly was not multiple choice & drew on your analytical skills.  I think everyone who responded had fun whether they got the solution or not – having fun & learning like I did is the point.
 
The quiz was taken from the May edition of CEP magazine to illustrate how a project team should focus on the simplest solution to a problem that minimizes the delay, cost, & additional equipment required to complete a task – a principle that is the heart & soul of the engineering-construction business as well as a good trait for all of us to use in our every day life.
 
The responses revealed there are two methods for working the problem.  I worked out solution # 1 below & then stopped thinking until I realized, as the responses came in, that more people derived solution #2 than #1.  All of the responses received are posted in the comments section under
Water Bucket Quiz.
 
Solution #1 – 1) Fill the 5-gal bucket.  2) Use the contents of the 5-gal bucket to fill the 3-gal bucket. (You now have a full 3-gal bucket & 2 gal of water left in the 5-gal bucket.)  3) Empty the 3-gal bucket, then pour the 2-gal of water from the 5-gal bucket into the 3-gal bucket.  4) Fill the 5-gal bucket again.  5)  Pour water from the 5-gal bucket into the 3-gal bucket (which currently contains 2 gal of water) until it is full.  What remains in the 5-gal bucket is 4 gal of water.
 
Responders who worked the problem this way include – our SC businessman (who called for tougher quizzes), HowK, & PB (also got #2).
 
Solution #2 – 1) F
ill the 3-gal bucket & pour it into the 5-gal bucket.  2)  Fill the 3-gal bucket again and use it to fill the 5-gal bucket to the top, leaving 1 gal of water remaining in the 3-gal bucket. 3) Empty the 5-gal bucket & pour the remaining 1 gal into the 5-gal bucket.  4)  Fill the 3-gal bucket again & pour it in with the 1 gal already in the 5-gal bucket, creating 4 gal total.
 
Responders who worked the problem this way include LW, Jg, Alison, RV, JR, Debbi, the Moonlight Gambler, & PB (also got #1).
 
When you combine the two solutions you realize that you can produce not only 4 gal of water using two unmarked buckets (the original task) but every whole number of gal from 1 up to 8 gal.  Just another benefit of creative people working together on a team – you always go higher than expected.
 
 

1 comment:

  1. Doug - I liked the other quiz better, maybe because I managed to answer the questions correctly.

    ReplyDelete