Lateral Thinking

[The Doctor]

Just when I thought I'd seen all of the motivational gimics that speakers use to get you thinking about your daily tasks and challenges in different ways, I got stumped at a sales conference last week. See how you do.

You have three cups of coffee sitting in front of you and 36 cubes of sugar. You must place all the cubes of sugar into the three cups and ensure you have an odd amount of sugar in each cup. How many cubes would you place in Cups 1, 2, and 3?

 

[Goober Mcfly]

I subscribe to the "Lazy Man's Philosophy".

There's no answer.

 

[[ALIMEISTER]]

Do you have to use the 3rd cup?

 

[Cardinal Fang]

For fear of making a spelling mistake, I will not post my answer.

 

[Goober Mcfly]

Is "zero" an even number?

 

[The Doctor]

Fang, I only posted this in anticipation of your mistake and the fun that would ensue.

 

[MuffinMuncher]

Since zero is neither a positive nor a negative number, according to the literal instructions of the problem, you have to use all 3 cups and you must add sugar to all of them in some quantity.

 

[The Doctor]

You must put sugar in each cup.

 

[Cardinal Fang]

Am I allowed to "loose" a cube in the process?

</doesn't have a clue>

 

[Goober Mcfly]

Well, then I stand by my original answer.

 

[The Doctor]

OK, Goober and Fang are stumped. Now can we get some input from some of the thinkers. At least MM read and understood the instructions correctly.

 

[The Doctor]

That's the whole point! You have to think laterally to solve the problem.

BTW- Sheik just tried to bribe me for the answer

red- full cubes only, but you're on to something.

 

[ToronToto]

Cup 1: 17 cubes
Cup 2: 19 cubes
Cup 3: put Cup 1 inside Cup 3

You could put other combinations of sugar in Cup 1 and 2, such as {1, 35}, {3, 33} etc.

 

[MuffinMuncher]

You could always add a fourth cup, then put 9 cubes in each of the four cups to satisfy the requirement. There was nothing to be said about adding more cups, only that you had to use each of the existing 3...... but I might be assuming too much.

 

[Goober Mcfly]

I got a couple of other solutions....

Tie Dome Solution

Why don't we just put 11 cubes in each cup and stuff the remaining 3 down The Doctor's farking throat.


Maurice Escher Solution

Place 1 cube in each cup, the rest go at right-angles to reality


The Overly Simple Solution

11 in Cup A
13 in Cup B
11 in Cup C
Smash the hell out of the last cube and distribute evenly.

 

[Cardinal Fang]

I believe what threw me off was having to think.

 

[Goober Mcfly]

Ummm, I meant to write "Dome". It was an insult. Yeah. That will do just fine.

I bet the answer is the following:

Put one cube in cup A, and cup B
Putting the remaining 34 in cup C would be odd indeed.

*dusts off Intern Monica Rifle, begins to align scopes*

 

[ToronToto]

Waiting for The Doctor to see if my answer is correct

 

[Goober Mcfly]

*pats ToronToto on the back for a clever answer*

*continues to assemble rifle, quietly whistling to himself*

 

[The Doctor]

...so that you have an odd amount of sugar...

Some people get down right ugly when they have to think this early in the morning. Maybe it's because the search function is down people have to relieve their stress through physical violence. I was stumped too but didn't get violent.

Sheik is right (as always). The whole point of the problem is that once the original statement is made, your mind approaches the solution from a purely mathematical perspective. With a little guidance, you eventually came to a solution that would have seemed impossible at the outset because 34 is not an odd number. But it is an odd amount of sugar.

The presenter at the conference used magic as an analogy for getting a diverse group of individuals to come to a similar conclussion i.e. believe you made a plane disappear/34 is an odd amount/buy your product. He performed several card tricks and then walked us through the mechanics to show us where his statement/guidance made it seem like he'd done magic. I think the magic part is that he is able to convince someone to pay him $10M a presentation to convince us that Sales is not an art or a science (depending on which training program you subscribe to) but in fact it's magic.