Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Tuesday puzzle
Alex Y
A little late today; sorry.
You are given 518 marbles and a supply of paper bags. You are to put the marbles in the bags, mark them with how many marbles are in each bag, and seal the bags. Then, by choosing the correct bags, you must be able to give me as many marbles as I request, from 1 - 518.
What is the smallest number of bags you can use in meeting this challenge?
P.S. Go vote if you haven't, whether you agree with my politics or not!
Re: Tuesday puzzle
Bill Earl
Would Bo Derek be the answer?
That's the answer I got
Alex Y
But alas -- no. Check your arithmetic. I was on the right track, as I suspect you are.
Re: That's the answer I got
Bill Earl
Would this be a Nigel Tufnel problem?
Coming at it from a binary point of view, the extra 7 need to be split up into two bags of 6 & 1.
Different routes to the same wrong answer
Alex Y
Sorry, but this reference totally escapes me.Would this be a Nigel Tufnel problem?
Why, and why not 4, 2, & 1? If you have eight bags totaling 511 and one with 7, to get 512 give all the bags except the 2 and 4; etc.Coming at it from a binary point of view, the extra 7 need to be split up into two bags of 6 & 1.
My error was to look at 512 as 2^9, then add one more bag.
Re: Different routes to the same wrong answer
Larry Barrett
Maybe I need another cup of coffee, but it seems to me that you need 9 bags to get up to all the numbers up to 511:
2^0=1, 2^1=2, ...2^8=256. Sum of these 9 = 511.
Then add a 10th bag with 7. To get to the remaining numbers (512, ... 518), substitute the bag with 7 for the bags with 1, 2, 4 to stay at 511, then add these in usual sequence.
Off to get the coffee. Had to google Nigel Tufnel and still not sure about that.
Boy, am I stoooooopid!
Alex Y
Apologies to Bill -- His first answer was right, and I need to start writing things out in detail to check my answers! And thanks to Larry for pointing out the right answer in baby steps that even I can follow!
I'll try to do better next time. 
me too!
Bill Earl
I neglected to fully work out my first answer also. This morning before the coffee kicked in, I thought it might take 11 - hence the reference to Nigel "This one goes to 11" Tufnel