Cutting A Gold Bar 3

[bam720]

If I have 1 gold bar, equally divided into 7 pieces as such:
|=|=|=|=|=|=|=|
I need to pay an employee each day for one week. His wages are 1 piece of the gold bar per day. How can I cut the bar to allow for fair payment using only 2 cuts. You can not fold the bar because it is gold.

 

[cjelec]

BobRodes,

So something like my suggestion, but with another curve?

 

[acent]

I'm going to be the prick and add more details. Since I have been involved with payroll duties at a prior job, I know we are forgetting that overtime must be paid.

The problem states that for one week of work, the bar was cut into 7 even pieces, and the wages for 1 day was one piece. So the worker was working all 7 days of the week, and most companies allot for overtime after 5 or 6 consecutive days of work.

Therefore, for days of overtime, the worker earns 1.5 pieces. Therefore, we need at least 1 bar, and 1/2 piece to pay the worker for the work on the day(s) that s/he should have been paid overtime.

Just a thought.

"If it's stupid but works, it isn't stupid."
-Murphy's Military Laws

 

[IknowMe]

One cut (although this method would require outsourcing and eliminates the overtime calculations)

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Wow, I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
I think I've forgotten this before.

 

[IknowMe]

Drat the OP states "fair payment" which I believe excludes outsourcing.

Wow, I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
I think I've forgotten this before.

 

[SkipVought]

I checked the National Institute of Standards, Weights and Measures Division and the National Conference on Weights and Measures, looking for piece as a linear (such as board foot), two dimensional, cubic, or even as a unit of weight, and, frankly, I came up short.

I am reminded of the fellow who, when ordering a pizza, when asked, "Want me to cu'cher pie into sixteen pieces?" replied, after a short pause, "Naauu. Can't eat that many."

And my Dad, who suddenly got smarter, the moment I left home, who told Mom, the instant after the first piece of cake went to little sister, "There's only one piece of cake left. Guess I'll finish it off!"

So with that, here's my stab.
[white][highlight white]
|=|

|=|=|

|=|=|=|=|

Day one he gets piece 1
Day 2 he gives back piece 1 & gets piece 2
Day 3 he gets piece 1 along with piece 2 he laready has
Day 4 he gives back piece all the pieces and gets piece 3
Day 5 he gets piece 1 along with piece 3 that he already has
[/highlight][/white]





Skip,
[sub]
When a group touring the Crest Toothpaste factory got caught in a large cooler, headlines read...
Tooth Company Freeze a Crowd! and
Many are Cold, but Few are Frozen![/sub]

 

[traingamer]

I can't believe this thread is still going since the first poster answered the question.
(And I made a joke about spending the money).

Greg
"Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught." - Winston Churchill

 

[SkipVought]

Greg,

Puzzlers, read the challenge, go off and work on a solution, come back back and post...

...and THEN read the other posts.

It has a life of its own! ;-)

Skip,
[sub]
When a group touring the Crest Toothpaste factory got caught in a large cooler, headlines read...
Tooth Company Freeze a Crowd! and
Many are Cold, but Few are Frozen![/sub]

 

[IknowMe]

Or they read the posts, realize they're to late to be the first with the correct answer and then try to find other unorthadox/humorous attempts to solve the problem. Either way it's all in the name of fun.

Wow, I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
I think I've forgotten this before.

 

[traingamer]

I quite understand. I've rarely met a rhetorical question that I didn't like.

Greg
"Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught." - Winston Churchill

 

[SkipVought]

Well, if you wind up, just spinning your wheels in your driveway...

..its your own asphalt!


Skip,
[sub]
When a group touring the Crest Toothpaste factory got caught in a large cooler, headlines read...
Tooth Company Freeze a Crowd! and
Many are Cold, but Few are Frozen![/sub]

 

[BobRodes]

<So something like my suggestion, but with another curve?

Yeah, something like, except you haven't shown that your pieces are equal in size, and you only have 5 of them and need 7.

 

[BobRodes]

<So something like my suggestion, but with another curve?

Yeah, something like, except you haven't shown that your pieces are equal in size, and you only have 5 pieces and need 7.

<I can't believe this thread is still going since the first poster answered the question.

I didn't see the first poster as answering the question, because it seemed to me a function of "payment" that one SHOULD be able to spend the money! As far as I'm concerned, it isn't payment if you have to give it back.


Bob

 

[halusmc]

BobRhodes is getting there.

Make one cut that is roughly the shape of a standard bell curve. Keeping the two peices together make another bell curve cut that is inverted. This will yeild 7 peices. Someone would have to do some math to figure the correct shape of the curve so each peice would be equal.

 

[SamBones]

Just thinking outside the box a little here. The original post says you can't fold the bar. It says nothing about folding the saw. What if you bent the saw into an "S" shape. Something like this when viewed from above...
[tt]
_
/ \ |
| | |
| | |
H \_/
H
H
[/tt]
...with the "H"s being the handle. It's spaced so the first "cut" takes three pieces off one side, and the second "cut" takes three off the other side, leaving a seventh middle piece from the center. If planned out correctlt, that would give you seven equal pieces.

(BTW, I think the first reply by mmerlinn was the correct one.)

 

[kaht]

In that case, why not just bend the saw 6 times to cut all 7 pieces in one cut?

-kaht

Lisa, if you don't like your job you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way. - Homer Simpson

 

[BobRodes]

<BobRhodes is getting there.
Falling short somehow? Please explain.

<roughly the shape of a standard bell curve
You mean as in like maybe a sine wave? (A sine wave is a representation over time of a periodic oscillation between two points, such may be seen in the variation of amplitude in an alternating current. For more information, see

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sine_wave.)

<Someone would have to do some math
Well, the math was done about 1000 years ago, by one Abu Nasr Mansur back in Persia. One may refer to any standard work on trigonometry to get the details.

However: one may draw a sine wave on the gold bar, such that the wavelength is 2/7 the length of the bar, the amplitude is 1/2 the width of the bar, the apex of any single wave iteration is tangent to one long side of the bar, and the phase is such that the apex of a wave iteration passes through a corner of the bar. Make the one cut along the wave, and you will have six equal pieces, and two more which are exactly half the size of the others.

 

[Diancecht]

You can also punch the bar until it breaks without any cut ...

Cheers,
Dian

 

[AlexCuse]

In that case, why not just bend the saw 6 times to cut all 7 pieces in one cut?

What if you only have scissors?

[small]----signature below----[/small]
I can't compete with you physically, and you're no match for my brains.
You're that smart?
Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
Yes.
Morons!

 

[skyline666]

bobrhodes, u kept going on bout ur sine wave, but if u think about it, when cut the bar so there is 3.5 waves, as soon as cut and the first small piece falls off, thats 1 cut cos u stopped cutting (why, theres nothing more to cut, need to start cutting the other way), so not bein to harsh (like u kept quoting others) but ur way wudnt work for 2 cuts

 

[BobRodes]

Well, I did think about it sky, and I came to an alternative conclusion. Maybe you could think about it some more.

My position (which if you had read my post a little more carefully, you would have already seen) is that if one cuts a line tangential to the edge one preserves the fact of a single cut, while simultaneously breaking into two pieces. Contemplate this: the cut touches the edge at a single point, which has no dimensions. So, does the cut end when it continues past a point with no dimensions, which point also serves to divide some medium into two pieces? I feel quite comfortable saying it does. I also feel quite comfortable being disagreed with on the matter.

However, if you wish to suggest that you are capable of categorically refuting my point of view with less mental effort than it takes to spell my name correctly, I'm afraid that I'll have to disagree with you there.

Bob