Question:
You hire a man to work for you for seven days. You wish to pay him in gold. You have one gold bar with seven parts — like a chocolate bar.
You wish to pay him one gold part per day, but you may snap the bar in only two places. Where do you snap the bar so that you may pay him at the end of each day, and so that on successive days he may use what you paid him previously to make change?
Answer:
Snap the bar into pieces that are one, two, and four parts long, respectively. On day one, give him one part. On day two, exchange your two parts for his one. On day three, give him back the one part. On day four, exchange four parts for his three. On day five, give him one more part. On day six, exchange your two parts for his one. On day seven, give him back the one part.
Special thanks for this interview question to Timothy Crack, author of Heard on the Street: Quantitative Questions from Wall Street Job Interviews.
Comments on this entry are closed.