Only For Geniuses

[Robbie]

Mwahh haa haa haaaaa!!

► Show Spoiler

light one fuse from both ends. That takes 30 seconds to burn the fuse.
Light the second fuse at exactly the same time you light both ends of the first, but light one end only. That burns 30 seconds worth of the second fuse. Exactly at the moment when the first fuse has totally burned, light the second end of the second fuse. That takes 15 seconds to burn the second half of the second fuse. 30+15=45 seconds.

[WLLady]

I needed to sleep on that one before i got it..lol. evil. And actually not that bad but i would need at least 3 arms to make it possible...lol

[poultry_admin]

For everyone who has gotten the 45 second fuse one, there is another one (more difficult).
You now have 1 fuse and try to get 10 seconds. You are still not allowed to fold/measure/mark/cut...

Well, I didn't get the 45sec one, so all I can tell you is how to solve the 10 sec one, but can't claim I did that one either.

[poultry_admin]

Last weeks was very difficult. Anyone who wants to learn the solution to the second fuse one, read the spoiler.

► Show Spoiler

Light the fuse on both ends and on two places anywhere in between. When one of the fires burn out, light another one making sure that always 6 are burning. That way you burn the entire fuse in 1 minute.

This week is a lot easier.

Jim and Tom go home after school talking about math class. The teacher wanted to test their ability to multiply 3 numbers in their heads. The numbers were natural numbers (= whole numbers bigger than 0).
Jim said: "poop I used addition instead of multiplication!"
Tom replies: "No problem, the answer is still correct"

Which 3 numbers did the teacher give them?

[Robbie]

OK got Jim and Tom, just wanted to clarify the fuse- one fuse, one minute to burn?

[Jaye]

Are we talking about JimW and TomK here?

[Robbie]

One of my favourites- "proving" that 1=0. Can you spot the mistake?
Consider two non-zero numbers x and y such that
x = y.
Then x2 = xy.
Subtract the same thing from both sides:
x2 - y2 = xy - y2.
Dividing by (x-y), obtain
x + y = y.
Since x = y, we see that
2 y = y.
Thus 2 = 1, since we started with y nonzero.
Subtracting 1 from both sides,
1 = 0.

[TomK]

Yup, me...and i got it quick but MJ got it faster..lol...and she hates math

[Robbie]

Hmmm couldn't figure out the burning fuse one this time, had to look at the spoiler. I don't get how that gives you 10 seconds though.

[WLLady]

So...burning fuse....light both ends and then 4 other places in the middle... 60sec burning fuse lit in 6 places should burn out in 10 seconds aslong as theres always 6 burning spots. But this assumes that one can relight instantly. I would rather 1-steamoat-2-steamboat-3-steamboat lol
And this really would only work if the fuse burns steadily and one has 6 hands to relight and and and..

And numbers should be 1 2 and 3...