A friend of mine has 10 sheep, and they insist on standing in a circular pen like this…..
However, it turns out that all of the sheep don’t like one another, and so have also insisted that they are protected from each other by a wall. The problem is that sheep pen walls are circular, and my friend can only afford three of them. How can you draw three circles on the illustration to ensure that each of the sheep has its own space, protected from the others?
As ever, please do NOT post your answers, but feel free to say if you have solved it and how long it took.
Answer on Monday!
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August 20, 2010 at 6:38 am |
I actually got this one right away it took me like 3 secs if not less. YAY
August 20, 2010 at 7:00 am |
For the love of god, why can’t intelligent people like you, yes YOU Mr Wiseman, understand that “it’s” means “it is” and that “each of the sheep has it’s own space” therefore means “each of the sheep has it is own space” which DOESN’T MAKE SENSE?
Here is a quick summary for the hard of thinking:
Its = “belonging to it”
It’s = “it is”
Holy crap. Unbelievable.
Sorry… I’ll get me coat.
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August 20, 2010 at 7:45 am
Shouldn’t that be “I’ll get my coat” ?
August 20, 2010 at 7:51 am
Geoff, a man after my own heart. I also get uncontrollably ranty when people get this wrong.
However, I am prepared to believe that the great Professor Wiseman does know this, but that it’s (see what I did there?) very easy to type this wrongly and not notice.
I mean, just the other day I nearly sent an email where I had mis-typed and replaced ‘there’ with ‘their’. Oh, the shame if I hadn’t spotted that before hitting send!
August 20, 2010 at 7:54 am
I love it when people throw themselves into a tizzy over what amounts to a typo. If you can puzzle out he didn’t mean “it is”, clearly the language used is serving the purpose of communication. Get on with your life.
August 20, 2010 at 9:33 am
Typo my arse.
I’ll wager 100 of your Earth pounds that Professor Wiseman (if that is his real name) knows little or nothing of apostrophisationism and its effects on society. It’s a sad day when [cont. p 94]
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August 20, 2010 at 11:40 pm
You destroyed your argument I feel by writing incorrect English at the end. If you are going to intellectually masturbate please don’t leave a mess
August 20, 2010 at 7:01 am |
Time taken to get the general idea: a minute or two
Time taken to draw the circles neatly enough to make sure: a few minutes more.
Impressed myself as I’m normally pretty crap at these sorts of things.
August 21, 2010 at 11:18 am
agreed. to. everything. said. above.
omg =P
August 20, 2010 at 7:07 am |
OK I’ve {I have} a question before I even start to go for the answer….Can I move the sheep or are they to remain in their current position? One of you that wow got the answer already maybe if not Richard himself as I’m {I am} sure that someone else will ask down the line.
August 20, 2010 at 8:07 am
OK waited no answer ….. after drawing it out… first way so far about 45 seconds…. but not very satisfying.
August 20, 2010 at 9:01 am
My first was without moving. My second was with moving and I’m sure it is the same as Will’s answer. None have felt really right. Well there is a weekend… back to my movie….
August 20, 2010 at 7:11 am |
Solved in 10 secs. Then checked in 1 min using half empty bowl of muesli, raisins and coffee mug.
August 20, 2010 at 7:11 am |
Few minutes (took me a little bit longer just to make sure).
August 20, 2010 at 7:44 am |
Assuming the pens can intersect and the sheep can move, 1 min, in fact I have room for 3 more sheep.
August 20, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Have you found a way of drawing the three circles so that there are 13 separate compartments? The most I can get is 10 separate compartments – one for each existing sheep. I can’t work out how you’ve managed to make three extra compartments!
August 21, 2010 at 9:57 am
Think outside the circle.
August 21, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Cheers!
August 20, 2010 at 7:54 am |
5 minutes with drawing. Nice puzzle!
August 20, 2010 at 7:58 am |
they don’t move, right?
Russian dolls…;)
August 20, 2010 at 7:58 am |
Could the answer be a Penn diagram?
August 20, 2010 at 8:53 am
V good!
August 20, 2010 at 8:11 am |
Not a bad one. Took about 30 seconds.
August 20, 2010 at 8:12 am |
About 2 seconds if I have got it right
August 20, 2010 at 8:16 am |
At first I could only think of how to do it with 4, but after about 30 seconds I got it.
August 20, 2010 at 8:19 am |
Hmmm… there is only one solution I can see, but the sheep are going to see their wool initially pressed
August 20, 2010 at 9:12 am
Hey Joao Pedro does this remind you of a room full of screaming kids? Like nine of them?
August 20, 2010 at 4:45 pm
I’m used to deal with kids (I’m the favorite uncle after all). Yes, it reminds me a little of kids, particularly when they like best ones and not others, so they keep some little dance of positioning themselves in relation to others, and sometimes they get themselves in very odd dispositions and moods. My solution is basically to enter and break everything as a made monster, where they will save themselves only if they work together… works all the time.
Wait… Hold on… oh!… you are talking about a previously puzzle, with nine babies screaming… I forgot that.
PS.: I left the snake phase and I’m now in the phase “Benetton”.
August 21, 2010 at 6:12 am
And speaking of kids…just got everything settled down…just after 2am my time and had a group over all evening to celebrate my odder son’s birthday {Aug. 20} and I am wiped out! gonna give the blog a quick read through and I’m going to sleep…will catch ya later Joao Pedro!
August 20, 2010 at 8:29 am |
I seriously can not find a way to do it. I’m sure I could easily if I got to move the sheep anywhere I want, but I don’t think that’s in the spirit of the puzzle. I’ll keep working at it.
August 20, 2010 at 8:40 am
Okay, I’ve come up with a way to do it, but I think the fences can’t be perfectly circular. If they can be ovoid, my answer works.
August 21, 2010 at 9:58 am
It can be done with circles.
August 20, 2010 at 9:20 am |
Instantanious. C’mon I though theses were suposed to be puzzels.
August 20, 2010 at 9:44 am |
I can make ten spaces with 3 circles for the ten sheep, but I can’t make the sheep fit in their current positions.
We’ve been asked to draw the circles “on the illustration” to separate the sheep, but is there really a way given the fashion in which the sheeps are arranged?
August 20, 2010 at 9:48 am
Yes. (But I wonder what Geoff thinks about these ‘sheeps’?)
August 20, 2010 at 12:43 pm
ROFL……someone please up me up off the floor….rofl continues…
August 20, 2010 at 9:46 am |
Could the friend buy barbed-wire fences instead of walls? Not only would it be cheaper, but he’d be able to bend them to whatever shape he needed. There, solved in 2 seconds flat.
August 20, 2010 at 9:52 am |
The sizes of the circles must be precisely right. The puzzle cannot be solved with circles of diameter divisible by ten pixels, but it can be solved with circles of diameter divisible by five pixels. The diameters of the three circles are all different, but not by much. Any more revelations about the necessary circle sizes would probably be spoilers.
August 20, 2010 at 10:07 am
Except to say that if you use circles with diameters even more precise (i.e. not divisible by five pixels), then two of them can be exactly the same size.
August 20, 2010 at 4:32 pm
hmmm… I guess Monday, I’m going to discover I was lazy. But at this moment I don’t have the right tools to do better.
August 20, 2010 at 11:34 pm
Windows Paint was the tool I used. For puzzles that involve pictures, I usually do.
BTW, last night I emailed Richard a suggestion for a future Friday Puzzle … it’s entirely up to him whether he uses it or not.
August 20, 2010 at 10:14 am |
3.5 seconds.
August 20, 2010 at 10:32 am |
worked backward..
drew 3 circle tangent to bigger one in such a way that it has 10 section…
August 20, 2010 at 10:38 am |
Methinks Geoff protesteth two much!!
August 20, 2010 at 10:50 am |
Can the fences overlap ?
Because I can do it topologically if they can overlap. Othewise I’m stuffed.
August 20, 2010 at 7:06 pm
Yeah, I can draw three circles and solve it, but they do overlap.
August 20, 2010 at 11:35 am |
What is the minimum one has to achieve so that it counts as a solution?
a) Figuring out exacts size and midpoint of the circles
b) Figuring out approximately how the circles have to lie (i.e. which sheep every circle encloses, which other circles it intersects with or touches)
August 20, 2010 at 12:54 pm
I went with (b). I think counting the number of pixels, as Flesh-Eating Dragon did, is taking it a bit far.
August 20, 2010 at 2:03 pm
It’s not enough of a challenge otherwise.
The intellectual puzzle (working out roughly how the circles lie) is too easy. The artistic puzzle (getting three perfect circles to fit so that the lines don’t cross over any sheep) is more satisfying.
August 20, 2010 at 12:26 pm |
About 5 secs to figure out the solution and another minute with paper and pencil to get the circles correct.
August 20, 2010 at 12:31 pm
And no sheep (or apostrophes) were harmed.
August 20, 2010 at 1:29 pm
I wouldn’t have taken me so long if I hadn’t fallen asleep counting the apostrophes.
August 20, 2010 at 1:21 pm |
Walls cannot intersect, can they? But i cannot find a solution without intersecting walls. With intersecting walls it is just too easy…
August 20, 2010 at 1:37 pm
there is a solution without intersecting walls but the sheep must not move very far…..maybe we should use an electric fence…that would make them picky sheep behave themselves…
August 20, 2010 at 1:42 pm
I believe they are rather special walls, they are able to pass through one another yet rigidly hold their circular shape, also they are available sized to very fine tolerances. But for special sheep you must have special walls.
August 20, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Solution without intersecting walls: WTF?? please enlighten us on Monday!
August 20, 2010 at 1:46 pm
@lilabyrd is there definitely a solution without intersecting walls ? that seems impossible
August 20, 2010 at 2:27 pm
I do believe so but the sheep must not move around much….but it sort of reminds me of screaming kids….if you know what I mean…like history has a way of repeating its {not it’s} self…lol…and in the strictest rules probable not but when has that ever stop our host from having the “correct answer”….grin….
August 20, 2010 at 3:45 pm
[Will] Just because there’s no objective evidence that it’s possible, it doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Ah, how I pity these close-minded skeptics with their inability to think outside the box of valid argument. Put 10 skeptics in a circular pen and they’d spend the whole time disproving the pen’s existence.
August 20, 2010 at 4:17 pm
@Martha…..my side hurt … oh please stop …. I may never get up off the floor…. but this I can not resist….how my skeptics does it take to screw in a light bulb? None because with no light the light bulb does not exist….. he he he….
August 21, 2010 at 5:38 pm
@Martha put 10 people in a pen with the opinion that ‘just because there’s no objective evidence that it’s possible, it doesn’t mean it’s not possible’ and they will probably invent 3 religions, a cult, 6 alternative therapies, and 9 conspiracy theories.
August 20, 2010 at 1:58 pm |
The walls may intersect. Richard has given this away in his answer to James, above.
August 20, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Oops, this was meant as an answer to M.
August 20, 2010 at 2:30 pm
how unlike him…..breaking his own rules…there must have been something really strange in that “drink me” bottle the other day…
August 20, 2010 at 3:04 pm |
Fortunately my first answer was correct. Just a couple of seconds.
Otherwise I would have gone for the Mint Sauce.
August 20, 2010 at 3:13 pm |
I gave up and just ate the sheep, they did however each have their own oven.
August 20, 2010 at 5:36 pm |
I apparently had the write answer like 30 seconds in, but I convinced myself it actually couldn’t go around the sheep for a while, so minutes later, I am confident it’s right (yay drawing pictures).
August 20, 2010 at 6:18 pm |
I can’t believe I got it. I almost didn’t try.
Printing the illustration and drawing circles was no help – my circles were decidedly wobbly.
But then I used Word to draw 3 circles, changed their sizes, and moved them around on top of the illustration – and I found the answer! All told it took about 4 minutes.
August 20, 2010 at 7:05 pm |
Got this one. It thought about it on and off for a while, but once I made some circles and started moving them around it came to me in seconds.
August 20, 2010 at 7:32 pm |
Got it on second attempt. Took maybe 40 seconds
August 20, 2010 at 11:33 pm |
About 10 seconds
August 21, 2010 at 12:15 am |
[...] It’s the Friday Puzzle! A friend of mine has 10 sheep, and they insist on standing in a circular pen like this….. [...]
August 21, 2010 at 6:13 am |
Can’t belive it’s so easy for me. After reading and watching took about 1-2 sec. (just to check the first idea that came to my mind). Maybe, it’s because of my mathematical education.
August 21, 2010 at 7:14 am |
10 seconds too easy.
August 21, 2010 at 8:55 am |
I nearly gave up after 20 secs, but it occurred to me in flash as I exited the site.
August 21, 2010 at 9:20 am |
I thought I got it in 10 seconds and felt really happy with myself.
however, I overlooked something pretty seriously stupid, so back to the drawing board.
August 21, 2010 at 10:31 pm |
I must be dumb. I can’t do it.
Can I just clarify, the farmer can only afford 3 circular pens, so that is the existing one & two new ones, so a total of 3 (precise) circles can intersect each other to create 10 penned areas?
Thanks.
August 21, 2010 at 10:48 pm |
Segregation won’t help these sheep in the long run.
August 22, 2010 at 7:14 am |
Took a few minutes.Drew three concentric circles inside the big circle separating each sheep in each radius.
August 22, 2010 at 4:31 pm |
About 30s to finish and i’ve even got space for 12 sheep never mind 10
August 23, 2010 at 1:51 am |
Gahh! Surely three circles can only divide the space into a maximum of eight areas?
… Ah ha! You actually have four circles to work with! The boundary of the field is itself a circle! Got it.
August 23, 2010 at 3:16 am |
I’m pretty sure I’m rather close, but I think I might be missing the bigger picture. I’d say I’m stumped and waiting for the answer.