The Tower and Glass Marbles Problem

The Catseye Marble company tests the strength of its marbles by dropping them from various levels of their office tower, to find the highest floor from which a marble will not break. We find the smallest number of drops required and from which floor each drop should be made. We also find out how the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The College mathematics journal 2010-11, Vol.41 (5), p.350-356
Main Authors: Denman, Richard T., Hailey, David, Rothenberg, Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Buildings
College Mathematics
Evaluation Methods
Integers
Mathematical functions
Mathematical Logic
Mathematics
Problem Solving
Reasoning
Recurrence relations
Structural Elements (Construction)
Tests
Tetrahedrons
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Summary:The Catseye Marble company tests the strength of its marbles by dropping them from various levels of their office tower, to find the highest floor from which a marble will not break. We find the smallest number of drops required and from which floor each drop should be made. We also find out how these answers change if a restriction is placed on the number of marbles allocated for testing. Investigating this puzzle motivates algorithmic thinking, and leads to an interesting recursive solution.
ISSN:0746-8342
1931-1346
DOI:10.4169/074683410X521946