Your Favorite Math/Logic Riddles?

shma asks: "Whether you're involved in the Sciences, Mathematics, or Engineering, you undoubtedly enjoy finding simple solutions to seemingly difficult problems. I'm sure you all have a favorite mind-bender, and who better to share it with than the Slashdot community? Post your own problems and try to solve others. Just one request: If you have figured out the solution, link to it in a post, rather than write it out where anyone can see it." What brain benders tickle your fancy? "Here's a sample to consider: You're in a dark room with 50 quarters, 18 of which are heads up. You are allowed to move around the coins or flip some or all of them, if you wish. Problem is, it's too dark to tell what you're moving or flipping (no, you can't figure it out by touch either). Your job is to split the coins into two groups, each of which has the same number of heads up coins. How do you accomplish this?"

Comments

LnxAddct

[tod_miller]

Allow me the ego to be freudian with you - LnxAddct.

* You write you name in a terse, leet form, vowels being for the swaety prole masses no doubt ;-)
* You grew up on bash scripting, weened onto perl, and now suck python out of the can while looking for chicks.
* You post a python script for solving methematical puzzles
* You post a python script for solving methematical puzzles, and worry about its bug freeness
* You post a python script for solving methematical puzzles, and worry you might have not done it pythony enough.
* You post a python script for solving methematical puzzles, encoded to get past lameness filter (instead of using code tags? ca you do that??)
* You post a uuencoded, compressed file of a python script for solving methematical puzzles, and instructions on how to get it working
* You post a uuencoded, compressed file of a python script for solving methematical puzzles, and instructions on how to get it working instead of posting the file to any hosting account, and posting a coral cache link to it. :-) Go linux! :-) :-) :-) ;-)