Puzzletober 2025: Heavy
She sees herself out, leaving him to finish settling in. There are a few minutes of silence until a battery of loud thuds emanates from the opposite corner of the hotel. He instinctively runs out of his room toward the noise and enters an open door with the number eight. The innkeeper stands by the back wall. He stares at a collection of paint cans on the floor. None of them are leaking, but there is a wooden board beneath them propped up by something small. The newcomer looks up and finds that one of the supports of a shelf had broken off under the weight of the cans, shaving the glue off the other. The innkeeper bolts to the door and locks the two of them inside. He admits, "I don't want them to have another example of how run-down this place is." Under a minute later, there is a rattle of the knob and a knock, which the innkeeper dismissively responds to with an affirmation of safety. The patrons discuss theories in the hallway, their voices nearly inaudible through the wall.
The cans are all labeled with samples of their own color of paint. The beige can, which is closest to the center of the debris, is unopened. The innkeeper picks up the beige can and tries to shove it on top of the tall wardrobe on the right side of the room, only to quickly retrieve it when the wardrobe lets out a violent creak. He says, "It would be great to know how heavy these are before replacing the shelf." The newcomer picks up the board and loose support and uses them to construct a hazardous seesaw.
Rules: Determine the weight of every paint can, given that the beige paint can has the maximum weight of 12 pounds and no can weighs less than 1 pound. Also assume that every paint can weighs an integer number of pounds. Note that the torque produced by a paint can equals its weight times its distance from the fulcrum and that the seesaw will only be balanced if the sum of all the torques balances out.
Comments
Post a Comment