Question

Alice has 3 buckets A, B, C with capacities 10L, 7L, 3L. Bucket A is full of water and the other two buckets are empty. When Alice pours water from any bucket to the other, she does so until the bucket she pours from is empty or the bucket she pours into is full, whatever happens first. No water is lost and we can specify the amount of water in each bucket after each pour simply by stating a pair of numbers that give the amount of water in buckets B and C. For Ex: (1,2) means there is 1L in B and 2L in C, hence 7L in A. Explain how Alice can change the buckets from (1,3) to (7,1) in 3 pours???

Answer 1

pour the 3 in C into A, giving it 9. then pour the 1 from B into C giving it 1. then pour 7 from A into B giving B 7 (its capacity). There will be 2 L left in A