Mugs, LOVE the weather balloon answer!!
Pills question- the weighing trick doesn't work, because you're looking at the weight each time you put pills on, which constitutes a use of the scale. Read the label.[/qupte]
You don't get the job. You can take the pills out of the bottles and "hold" them till you have taken the required amount out of all bottles. Then as one motion place them on the scales and take a reading.
Blender question- try your cell phone. If that doesn't work and if it looks safe to do so, try to tip it back and forth. If that doesn't work, cut an exit tunnel with your car keys. If that doesn't work, use the keys to tap SOS in Morse code on the blade. If that doesn't work, use your jet pack.
Cell phone is a nice idea... jet pack :hmm:
Elephant question- just measure the displacement. If it doesn't float on water, use mercury. Or use a balance. Or get a lot of mylar balloons, fill them with helium, and tie them to the elephant until it flies away. But the real answer is- if I only need to weigh it once, I'd skip all the unnecessary infrastructure, training costs, and risk associated with error and just hire an elephant weighing service.
:thumbsup:
The question isn't what is the minimum number of guesses to guarantee you get the right answer. It is what is the minimum number. As stated the answer is 1. Always answer the question asked
I disagree. It is asking what is the minimum number of guesses to find a specific number, which translates to "guarantee you get the right answer". The answer is 10.
Also, the plane takes off.
Pills question- the weighing trick doesn't work, because you're looking at the weight each time you put pills on, which constitutes a use of the scale. Read the label.
What? No! Just use a fucking boat people! Get a large shallow bottom boat, mark the water line, get the elephant on the raft, mark the new water line and then figure out the volume of water displaced and thus the weight of the elephant.
I'll try a few.
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"If you could be any superhero, which one would you be?" -- AT&T (T)
Actually, let me tell you which one I wouldn't be. Batman. See, superheros all have a super power. Super villains have one two. You can write each superhero down as a linear combination of their super power eigenvectors. Superman is basically a linear combination of all superpowers. Super villains have a -1 coefficient in front of their super powers, and all super power strength is modified by a length of the super power vector. Now, Batman must be a superhero cause he's in that justice league or whatever right? But he's really just some smart dude who runs around in tights. He doesn't have superpower. So how do we reconcile this? He has a super power, it just does nothing. He has the null super power. It's a pretty damn useless superpower, so I wouldn't be him. It's a shame though because he has all this badass stuff. And he's rich.
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He very well might, but clearly, did not. It's all about semantics, so it's hard to be too semantic. If it weren't about semantics, it would be worded in a way that made the problem's requirements more explicit, in terms that don't require connotation.
I used to ask wacky questions back when I had a decent-sized company and I was hiring people. Partly because I wanted to see how smart and/or experienced people were. (did they know the answers already, or did they figure it out quickly?)
Partly to see how their minds worked - I wanted to see the thought processes, not so much the answers.
Partly because often I had a business challenge of my own hanging over my head and if I asked a few people, I'd get some pretty good suggestions!
Partly because it's a great way to discover which programmers had a sense of humor, which is a necessity for working with me.
And partly just for fun, because it's a hoot watching someone scramble
Aren't you glad I'm not your boss??
It really depends on what the definition of a scale is. Generally speaking, it's impossible, but you allow for scale alternatives (e.g. checking the water line) then you can do it. First thing that came to my mind was pumping the displaced water through a flow meter and integrating the discrete data to figure out the volume, then assuming 0.98g/cc density for the elephant.no. measuring the displacement of objects still leaves you guessing at their density to estimate weight.
a more accurate method would be to coax the elephant onto a boat and measure the water line. Then remove elephant and add known weights until the boat sank to the same water line.
How is this one easy? Assuming you must step and reach, I'd call it between 10 and 73 feet.2. There is a tree of unknown height, it has 22 branches. You can climb the tree. You can reach 7 feet and lift your leg 3 feet. What is the highest branch's height?
Easy.
Yeah, it's not like people haven't put millions of manhours and billions of dollars into that problem and come up short. That said, with a scifi option, it could be done.3. Design an alternative to a keyboard and mouse that is just as accurate and quick to use.
Wtf?
I was thinking to have a clear plastic pipe installed vertically in the pool, to sufficiently dampen ripples and waves, boat or no boat, for a water-line measurement.You put them in your hand, then put them as a group on the scale...
That'll be inaccurate. Do you think the elephant will hold still long enough for the ripples and waves in the pool to stop completely? A large shallow bottom boat won't have a huge change in the water line when you add mass (that's the point of it), so your measurement won't be accurate at all. If anything, you'd want a very narrow "boat".
If I were in the interviewer's shoes, wouldn't be asking questions like that for the sake of being told the nearest power of two needed to exceed the maximum number range.It's a job interview question. The interviewer is testing your ability to solve a problem. Guessing once and hoping you're right is not the answer they are looking for. Put yourself in the interviewer's shoes and think what answer is right.
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/04/05/the-most-ridiculous-job-interview-questions/
From Fortune magazine:
"Given the numbers 1 to 1,000, what is the minimum number of guesses needed to find a specific number, if you are given the hint 'higher' or 'lower' for each guess you make?" -- Facebook
Based on the dicussion here about the possible answer being 1 or 10. I would answer 10 then thought of this...
http://xkcd.com/169/
You put them in your hand, then put them as a group on the scale...
That'll be inaccurate. Do you think the elephant will hold still long enough for the ripples and waves in the pool to stop completely? A large shallow bottom boat won't have a huge change in the water line when you add mass (that's the point of it), so your measurement won't be accurate at all. If anything, you'd want a very narrow "boat".
...
"If you could be any superhero, which one would you be?" -- AT&T (T)
Actually, let me tell you which one I wouldn't be. Batman. See, superheros all have a super power. Super villains have one two. You can write each superhero down as a linear combination of their super power eigenvectors
.....
2. There is a tree of unknown height, it has 22 branches. You can climb the tree. You can reach 7 feet and lift your leg 3 feet. What is the highest branch's height?
Easy.