Question

This one I know the answer, but I take issue with it:
Returnable bottles. A government program allows people to collect empty milk bottles and exchange them for bottles full of milk. Four empty bottles may be exchanged for one full bottle. How many bottles of milk can a family drink if it has collected 24 empty bottles?

Answer 1

by giving away 24 empty bottles they will be given 6 full bottles,

they will drink them all and have 6 empty bottles,

and they 4 out of them exchanged for another full bottle,

they will now be left with 3 empty bottles,
having drank 7 botles of milk

Answer 2

That SHOULD be the right answer in my book, but the answer given in the magazine is a bit extraneous. Try to think a little outside the box to alter your answer sightly (like I said, I wouldn't have thought it, so I want to see if one of you do).

Answer 3

the answer is eight,

if they follow this,

they have 24 bottles

give four empty bottles, get i, now left with 21

after repeating the process they now have 18

it goes lik

24,21,18,15,12,9,6,3,0

and hence they can have 8 bottles of milk

Answer 4

I totally didn't understand that but the answer is right.

Here's the ridiculous reasoning given in the book:

"It’s not hard to see that the family can drink 6 + 1 = 7 bottles of milk, and it will have three empty bottles left. Then the family can borrow one empty bottle, exchange the four empty bottles for one bottle of milk, drink it, and return the bottle it borrowed. Thus, the family can drink eight bottles of milk."

So apparently we are to assume the charitable nature of their neighbors in lending a bottle for exchange.

Answer 5

oops i messed up,
i forgot to impose the condition that for transaction to be possible 4 bottles are necessary,

so the last transactioin from 3 to 0 will not be possible,

Answer 6

if thats the answer given its not even a mathematical problem then

Answer 7

Right?
I'm glad you agreed.
It's the only problem in the series where they do not site winners. I suspect people had a distaste for this problem, which is unlike the other problems I posted (also from the same series).

Answer 8

are ur problems part of some series of problems given by an magazine

Answer 9

Exactly. It was called "Quantum".
They don't make it anymore.