Brainteasers

[TruckOSaurus]

zexen_lowe said:

Johann said:
Ok, no one is posting here! This thread can't die!

We have to keep it going!

Nordlead's problem is too much for a human being to handle!

As for TruckOSaurus's horses one... I'm gonna guess 6 races just to get it out of the way: divide the horses in groups of five and then race the 5 winners

 

My guess it that isn't enough to guess the 3 fastest, say you group them by chance them this way:

1st race: 1st quickest-2nd quickest-3rd quickest-4-5

2nd race: 6-7-8-9-10

and so on, you'd end with 1-6-11-16-21 racing the final, and you'd end with 1-6-11 as the quickest horses

The safest bet is to race any horses, pick the three fastest, race them against two more, pick the three fastest and so on. That way you can be sure that you'll end with the three fastest, and it will take you 11 races. I don't know if there's one quicker way to do it, though

 

You're on the right track zexen but there's a faster way the determine the 3 fastest. I'll give everyone a hint in saying that after the 5 initial races you can eliminate all the horses the placed 4th and 5th because they got beat by 3 or more horses making it impossible for them to be in the top 3.