Subject:
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Re: Badly Abridged
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.fun
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Date:
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Thu, 19 Feb 2004 19:32:28 GMT
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Viewed:
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1089 times
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> > One at a time, from the lightest to the heaviest.
>
> Great for the lightest people, but almost certainly guaranteeing
> the death of the heaviest, or someone before, because of the build-up
> of damage. On the other hand, if you go from heaviest to lightest,
> it's possible that the incremental damage still won't be enough
> to make it unsafe for the person at the end.
Let's do some number-crunching, to illustrate.
Let's say that the rope will take a maximum stress-load of one
thousand (1,000) pounds, cumulative, before snapping.
Let's futher assume we've got the following people, identified
solely by their weights (in pounds):
100
125
150
175
200
225
250
275
300
Case I - from lightest to heaviest...
The 100-lb. weakling gets across OK. So does 125#, 150#, 175#, and 200#.
At this point, the accumulated stress is (100 + 125 + 150 + 175 + 200)
750 pounds. So, that means the 225-lb. person makes it across (accum.
stress is now 975 lbs.). But, when 250# tries to walk across, *SNAP*,
"Aaaaaaaaeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii--" **SPLAT**
Let's count how many people *did* make it across (remember that the
objective is the *most* people across!). I count six: the 100-lb.,
the 125-lb., the 150-lb., 175, 200, and 225.
Case II - from heaviest to lightest...
The 300-lb. linebacker gets across, as does the 275#, and the 250#.
At this point, our accumulated stress-level is (300 + 275 + 250)
825 pounds. So, when the 225-lb. person tries to cross, *SNAP*,
"Aaaaaaaaeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii--" **SPLAT**
In this case, only *three* people got across.
QED. One at a time, from lightest to heaviest is, overall,
the best plan for getting the most people across the bridge.
Franklin
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Badly Abridged
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| (...) Great for the lightest people, but almost certainly guaranteeing the death of the heaviest, or someone before, because of the build-up of damage. On the other hand, if you go from heaviest to lightest, it's possible that the incremental damage (...) (20 years ago, 19-Feb-04, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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