Comments on: Brain Game: Jed & Zed Need Socks

By: Jerad

Jerad — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:11:00 +0000

No, the solution is correct, they each give one sock from each sock pair to the brother. So in cooper’s example Jed would give two brown socks and one white to Ned in exchange for two black and one white.

By: Cooper Del Honda

Cooper Del Honda — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:06:00 +0000

Maybe I’m wrong here but it seems that the solution is wrong. Say Jed picked up two brown and one white and Ned picked up two black and one white and they inadvertantly trade the pair of white socks to each other or Jed trades a brown for a white?

By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:49:00 +0000

The question is definitely misleading. The phrase “each of them had one white pair, one brown pair, and one black pair” implies that the colors were all paired correctly together. However, the solution only provides that each brother has six socks made up of the 3 colors in sets of 2…not that the colors are correctly paired.

By: Zach

Zach — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:34:00 +0000

I got it right, but as pointed out before, this solves only the logic problem, not the real life problem.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:00:00 +0000

I thought the same thing as Chan…

By: Chan

Chan — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:54:00 +0000

Going for extra credit here…if it were a sunny day they could lay the socks out for a couple minutes, then feel them. The white socks would be coolest, brown warm and black pretty darned hot.

Under Sandy’s original solution, we’ve only ensured that they take home an identical collection of 6 socks/3 colors, but it’s not likely that any of them would actually be pairs of matched socks.

By: kindofgross

kindofgross — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:34:00 +0000

not as elegant a solution, but since they both tucked the socks under their arms, they could have determined by scent. I assume that having spent a lifetime together, they would each recognize the other’s BO.

By: kvn

kvn — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:00:00 +0000

that’s an easy way of ensuring that you don’t wear the same coloured socks to work tomorrow