Three Containers Puzzle
Requires a Wolfram Notebook System
Interact on desktop, mobile and cloud with the free Wolfram Player or other Wolfram Language products.
You have three containers. The 3 L container (L means liter) is empty and the 5 L and 6 L containers are full with 50° and 90° water, as shown initially in this Demonstration. We will refer to them as containers 1, 2, and 3, respectively. By transferring water from one container to another we change the amount and temperature of their contents. For instance, if we transfer from container 3 to 1 and then from 2 to 3, we end up with container 1 full with 90° water, container 2 with 2 L of 50° water, and container 3 full with 70° water. The temperature of container 3 changed from 90° to 70° because 3 L of 90° water and 3 L of 50° water produce 6 L of water at 70° (70 being the average of 90 and 50). If we now fill container 2, it will hold water at 62° because mixing 3 L of 70° water and 2 L of 50° water produces 5 L of 62° water, 62 being equal to (3×70 + 2×50)/(3 + 2).
[more]
Contributed by: Jaime Rangel-Mondragon (July 2011)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
Snapshots
Details
detailSectionParagraphPermanent Citation
"Three Containers Puzzle"
http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/ThreeContainersPuzzle/
Wolfram Demonstrations Project
Published: July 26 2011