Grunt0302

I enjoy these types of problems. And isn't that why we enjoy wargames? They are exercises in problem solving. Regarding our berries, or Rat Patrol guys, where the equation goes wrong is in the ratio. Ratios don't have to add to 100. My monitor ratio is 16:9, for example. So the water to berry solids ratio goes from 99:1 to 98:1. Now do the math and you'll see the weight of the water lost is .5lbs.

At the risk of beating a dead horse...no offense intended Blackhorse...consider this: You have a box with 49 oranges and 1 apple. If you are asked to remove 1% of the oranges, how many do you take out? Note there is no relationship between apples and oranges. You aren't being asked to make the apples a certain ratio of the oranges or vice versa. So, as in the blueberry problem, injecting the ratio of water to blueberry solid introduces a false relationship and that's why the math doesn't work out over the other percentages.

But if you've boiled off half the water, you've lost 50%, not 1%. That's why I agree with dieseltaylor, the ratio of water to solid berry is not relevant, it's a red herring. Well, that and because he agreed with me. There's a name for a mathmatical equation that can logically lead to a silly conclusion. But it's not coming to me at the moment. Here's another example; Three men check into a hotel. The front desk clerk tells them it costs $30 per night. They each pay $10 and go to their room. Later the cleark realizes he made a mistake and should have charged only $25. So he gives five $1's to the bell boy and tells him to take it to the men. On the way the bell boy realizes he can't split this evenly among the men. So he decides to give the men $3 and to keep the remaining $2 for himself. So in effect each man has paid $9. 3 x $9 = $27. Plus the $2 the bell boy kept is $29. What happened to the other $1? The answer of course is that (3 x 9) + 2 = 29 is the wrong equation. The correct equation is 25 + 3 + 2 = 30. I think something like this is happening to our berries.

Let's carry the logic a step further...let's say the berries have only 80% water the next day. The ratio is now 80:20 or 4:1. w/0.5 = 4 so w = 2lbs of water. 2lbs + .5lbs = 2.5lbs check: 2/2.5 = .8 (80%, Correct) So 1% water weighs 24.5lbs and 19% weighs 2lbs. That doesn't make sense. The fact of the matter is that if you have 50lbs of something that has lost 1% of it's weight, you have lost .5lbs. It's really that simple.

From a lurker and CM:SF newbie, thoroughly enjoyable! Thank you for taking the time to bring us along.