In a time long, long ago there lived a wise and generous king. As with all kings, he was extremely wealthy.
But what set him apart from most rulers past and present was he loved sharing his good fortune with his subjects.
And just as much as he enjoyed spreading his good fortune around, he enjoyed a good riddle.
The king posted this riddle and if his subjects could solve it the king would disperse the gold among his people.
He showed his subjects five royal purple velvet bags and then displayed the five gold coins that each bag contained.
He explained that each coin weighed exactly one pound … EXCEPT for one bag that was filled with five fake gold coins. And each fake gold coin weighed exactly one pound and one ounce.
He pointed to the royal scale beside him and noted that it was extremely accurate. He told his people that they could have one –but ONLY ONE – chance to use the scale to try to determine which bag held the fake coins.
And whatever they decided to weigh had to go on the scale ALL at the SAME TIME.
They couldn’t put one bag on and then closely watch as they added another to see how the scale changed.
Whatever they wanted weighed had to go on the scale at the same time – and they only had ONE CHANCE to use the scale.
If his subjects could figure out which bag had the fake coins, the kind king would disperse all the gold among his subjects.
Would you be able to figure out how to use the scale JUST ONCE and successfully find the fake bag in order to enjoy some gold?
I trust everyone will be on the honor system and avoid Google, Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc. – and figured it on their own.
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