SOLUTION: Six volumes of an encyclopedia,each volume 4 cm thick,are on a library shelf in the order: vol 1,vol 2, vol 3, vol 4, vol 5, vol 6 from left to right. A bookworm starts outside the
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-> SOLUTION: Six volumes of an encyclopedia,each volume 4 cm thick,are on a library shelf in the order: vol 1,vol 2, vol 3, vol 4, vol 5, vol 6 from left to right. A bookworm starts outside the
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Question 1159362: Six volumes of an encyclopedia,each volume 4 cm thick,are on a library shelf in the order: vol 1,vol 2, vol 3, vol 4, vol 5, vol 6 from left to right. A bookworm starts outside the front cover of vol 1 and eats his way by the shortest route through the back cover of vol 4. How far does the bookworm travel? Answer by greenestamps(13200) (Show Source):
This is a trick question involving very simple arithmetic....
When a book is on a shelf in the correct orientation, the front cover is at the right and the back cover is at the left.
So in this problem the only thing between the front cover of volume 1 and the back cover of volume 4 is volumes 2 and 3. So the distance from outside the front cover of volume 1 to outside the back cover of volume 4 is 2*4m = 8cm.
The usual statement of this kind of problem has the bookworm eating all the way from the front of the first volume to the back of the last volume. If that was the intention in this problem, then of course the bookworm has to eat his way through volumes 2 through 5, which means a distance of 4*4cm = 16cm.
