Glass Pouring
Coach Newton sets up glasses arranged in a triangle as shown, with the glasses numbered and full of water and the others empty. He challenges the team to rearrange the glasses into the second configuration shown, with full glasses at positions and , and in which the triangle points in the opposite direction.
What is the smallest number of glasses the students can move to perform Coach Newton’s challenge?
The answer is 2.
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1 solution
Observe that the right-sided diagram is symmetrical and rotational about glass F . Since we want thee vertex-glasses of the triangle to be empty, pour Glass 7 into Glass 4 and 1 0 into 6 .
Thus, the minimum number of glasses the students can move is 2 .