A camel is sitting by a stack of 3000 bananas at edge of a 1000 mile wide desert. He is going to travel across the desert carrying as many bananas as he can to the other sides. He can carry 1000 bananas at a time, but he eats one banana every mile.

What is the maximum number of bananas the camel can get across the desert? How does the camel do it? Explain how you arrived to your answer.

Hint: The camel does not have to go all the way across the desert in one trip

Question

A camel is sitting by a stack of 3000 bananas at edge of a 1000 mile wide desert. He is going to travel across the desert carrying as many bananas as he can to the other sides. He can carry 1000 bananas at a time, but he eats one banana every mile. 

What is the maximum number of bananas the camel can get across the desert? How does the camel do it? Explain how you arrived to your answer. 

Hint: The camel does not have to go all the way across the desert in one trip

baseballer2014 · Answer

@tkhunny

tkhunny · Answer

Good luck with this one.   It's a little too game like to interest me.  For you, though, since you did so well on the last one, I offer a few hints.

You're going to have to be conservative.  If you carry 1000 bananas and walk 1000 miles, you will get to the other side and leave 2000 stranded.

Consider walking half as far.  500 out and 500 in.  You are back at the start, but you're down 1000 bananas.

How about carry 1000 and walk 250, dropping 500 at the 250 point and walking back.  Now, we have 2000 at the start, 500 as m250 and you're at the start.

Do it again.  Now, we have 1000 at the start, 1000 as m250 and you're at the start.

Pick up the last 1000 and walk 250.  Now, we have 1250 at m250 and you stand there as well.  We can now start the problem over with these new parameters.  Are we going to get there with any?

If you're not happy with that, try it with m100.

Trip 1 m0 2000 m100 800
Trip 2 m0 1000 m100 1600
Trip 3 m0 0 m100 2500

Trip 1 m100 1500 m200 800
Trip 2 m100 500 m200 1600
Trip 3 m100 0 m200 2000

Trip 1 m200 1000 m300 800
Trip 2 m200 0 m300 1700

Trip 1 m300 700 m400 800
Trip 2 m300 0 m400 1400

Trip 1 m400 400 m500 800
Trip 2 m400 0 m500 1100

Trip 1 m500 100 m600 900 - no point in going back for the other 100

Trip 1 m600 0 m1000 500

Using the 100 mile scenario, we managed 500 bananas.  Can we do even better with a 50 mile scenario?

baseballer2014 · Answer

i think we can let me work on it for a little ill get back to you

tkhunny · Answer

If we can, we may be able to do even better with a 1-mile scenario.  :-)  Good luck.