You own a goldmine with 50 employees...

[Jason_C]

Umm. There's only 50 bags total though. One bag for each employee. I still don't understand where this one is coming from.

The only valid math equation I see is 50 x 16 = 800. There must me something I'm not seeing.

DaGuy is saying you collect multiple bags from different employees. If you collect one bag from the first, two from the second, etc, then you can find the answer if you weigh them all at once. As he said, if your measurements come up sixteen ounces short of what is expected, worker #sixteen is the culprit.

You would have to collect multiple bags over a period of days. Only if the employee stole EVERY day would it work.

 

[blade146]

...every day they are given a 16oz bag and told to fill it with gold. Someone tips you off that an employee has been stealing gold from you for a year by filling their bags with only 15 oz of gold. The bags your employees hand in are numbered so that you know which bags belongs to which employee but you must first weigh them in order to figure out which bags are missing 1oz from them. You have a digital scale with no weight limit.

What is the least number of measurements you can make garenteeing you will find the culprit? (you may not say one measurement with the reasoning you got lucky and weighed the right bag first)

Edit: explain your reasoning.

The text in bold should answer your question.

 

[exiledforcefreak]

I don't recall saying you only had one bag from each employee. You created that boundary in your own mind, not my fault.

 

[Tkwiget]

I'm angry. More like pissed off. Not because I didn't get the answer right or because DaGuy got it correct. The fact I spend money on a couple college math courses for nothing. They covered this stuff and more advanced things as well. What a waste of time.

Anyway congrads on getting it right DaGuy. =)

EDIT: I also don't need constant reminders of where I was at fault. I have two eyes and a brain. Allow me to use them in reflecting on my failure to learn something.

 

[exiledforcefreak]

LOL. Yeah, I specifically said the employee had been stealing from you for a year for a reason...

 

[Tkwiget]

I believe you can stop now since the purpose of this thread is over with.

 

[exiledforcefreak]

it's a logic problem, not a math problem... kinda...

 

[Tkwiget]

Believe me I gave my best shot at it and failed horribly too. I got it incorrect for two reasons. One of which is why I sometimes get card rulings wrong -- which is reading too quickly and not paying attention to key words. The other reason is sheer lack of memory recall. Neither of these reasons are valid excuses for me not getting closer to the correct answer.

Now let's just move on to something else ok?