An Impossible Question!

Level 1

A bear walks a great distance South. Then he takes a left, & walks a great distance. He again takes a left & walks a great distance. Amazingly, he finds itself where it started initially. Find the color of the bear!


Details & Assumptions : a great distance means the range between 1000 1000 - 3000 k m 3000 km .

White Brown Black None of These

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

1 solution

Hahahaha...Ameya...nice question!!! First of all, we can say that after three turns, the bear reached its first position...this statement is untrue for a plane ground...but on curved areas such as the poles of the earth, the condition can be true...and hence the bear is a polar bear...thus it is white in colour...

Yes! I had the same solution in mind! Give me a high five! :)

Ameya Salankar - 7 years, 1 month ago

Log in to reply

Ameya, the bear is 'black', its fur is white................just a fact!

Satvik Golechha - 7 years, 1 month ago

Log in to reply

@Satvik Golechha , OK! Thanks!

Ameya Salankar - 7 years, 1 month ago

No, simply being on a sphere is enough. Imagine the bear walking 1 meter (a "great" distance) south, then about 40000 km west, circling the equator, and then 1 meter north; the bear is back where it started. So it's indeterminate. We don't care if the bear dies because it needs to cross an ocean; the problem is still wrong.

Ivan Koswara - 7 years, 1 month ago

Log in to reply

@Ivan Koswara , that is why I put 'great' as an adjective over distance. I knew of this limitation.

Ameya Salankar - 7 years, 1 month ago

Log in to reply

That means your problem is vague; you should have written some more objective thing like "great distance means 5000 km" or something.

Ivan Koswara - 7 years, 1 month ago

Log in to reply

@Ivan Koswara Hmmm \dots . OK.

Ameya Salankar - 7 years, 1 month ago

Log in to reply

@Ameya Salankar Did you know about a similar riddle? Did you know there are multiple solutions? Take a point approximately 2000 + 1000 π 2000 + \frac{1000}{\pi} km away from South Pole. Walk 2000 2000 km south, now you're 1000 π \frac{1000}{\pi} km away from South Pole. Walk 2000 2000 km west, circling the South Pole once, now you're back at the same place before you circle. Walk 2000 2000 km north, now you're back at the starting point. And I'm pretty sure bears 2000 2000 km away from South Pole aren't necessarily polar bears...

Ivan Koswara - 7 years, 1 month ago

Log in to reply

@Ivan Koswara Leave it buddy.

Ameya Salankar - 7 years, 1 month ago

Yeah, i know a very similar riddle.

David Lee - 7 years, 1 month ago

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...