No, it would not work because of the “irregular rate” issue. You are assuming that, in the second fuse, each half of the fuse would require 30 minutes to burn, but that is not guaranteed. It could be that one half burns in 10 minutes and the other one in 50 minutes. In this case, in your solution, after 5 minutes you will have one half exhausted, and the other half only partially burnt, and no idea of the time elapsed. Note that waiting for the second half to complete would add another 25 minutes, not the required 10.
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You walk to the nearest village.
“Hapless fool, I am a wizard! Dost thou not see by my long beard? Come with me and bring thy smartphone, that thou mayst serve me in a matter regarding time.”
“Sir, this is an Arbys.”
Crushed by this witty retort, you give up wizardry and take up a more lucrative job in the software industry, where everyone is intimidated by your long beard and assumes you are a Unix expert.
You hang the fuses on the wall of your office to remind you that lateral thinking can improve your life. By the time you retire to your cave and resume wizarding, you’re more up to date on technology and bring some proper timing equipment with you.
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I believe this is the only answer which uses every element of this puzzle, including the wizard, the beard, and its being posted on the Internet in the year 2019.
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I see the what you’re saying, but what I was thinking was that I would ignore whichever of the final two legs burned first and wait for the last to finish. Wouldn’t that eliminate the effect of the irregularity?
If you think on my counter-example, you’ll see that your method will not work.
Consider a fuse such that one half takes 10min to burn, at regular speed, while the other half takes 50min, also at regular speed. This fuse would be “legal” under the terms of the problem, because the total time would be 60min.
Assume that we cut this fuse at the middle, and burn the resulting four ends at the same time (which is equivalent to burn the fuse starting at the middle and both ends). The first half will be burnt in 5min. The second half will require 25min. So if you wait for the last one to complete, you’ll have to wait 25 minutes, not 15.
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Thanks! That example really clarified things.
Does anyone know a way we can make a barometer out of the two fuses?
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Light both ends of first fuse & one end of second fuse. When first fuse burns out, light the second end of the second fuse. Boom.
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