light 1 incense once it burns to halfway point light the second one once the second one burns out you reach 45 minutes ...is my guess. anyone have other methods besides breaking 1 incense exactly halfway?
This is a variant on the candle-burning problem that keeps getting thrown at people at technical interviews. The solution always involves burning from both ends.
valens said: This is a variant on the candle-burning problem that keeps getting thrown at people at technical interviews. The solution always involves burning from both ends.
But incense sticks can't be burned on both sides,unless you break off the handle.
How if the incense is arranged like λ ? On paper, the second incense will be lit automatically when the fire meet its tip at the middle. Of course in practice the cinder won't be strong enough to lit the second incense though.
Place them in the shape of a "T" on a non burnable surface, burn the tip of the horizontal incense, aka top of the "T" once it reaches the middle it will be 15 min and automatically burn the 2nd one. I wish I recorded my boredom erm I mean findings.
DHP said: Place them in the shape of a "T" on a non burnable surface, burn the tip of the horizontal incense, aka top of the "T" once it reaches the middle it will be 15 min and automatically burn the 2nd one. I wish I recorded my boredom erm I mean findings.
best answer yet but you still run into the problem that an incense stick cant be burnt on both ends without getting rid of the holder portion of the incense stick
the ones that stated that arranging them in a T would be correct, since you can't forget to lit it when it reaches half. Tough you can still forget to 'watch' when it ends
Incest sticks cannot be lit on both sides so maybe you could lay them on a table facing opposite directions but parallel and side by side and light both simultaneously. When the flames reach each other (true midpoint of both candles) this is 15 min. Blow out one stick and let the other burn to the end (15 more min). Once this is done, re light the other stick (15 min).
That being said, if I was doing something that required measuring 45 minutes accurately, and if it was that important, I would bring at least two timing devices, one digital, one mechanical.
79248cm/s said: That being said, if I was doing something that required measuring 45 minutes accurately, and if it was that important, I would bring at least two timing devices, one digital, one mechanical.
You should be caved.
I don't like the burn at both end solution since it can't account for the "magic burnable's" main rule that it takes 30 minutes to burn. (I hate magical burning stuff.) It doesn't say anything about what kind of burning, so alit from both ends, the rules require it still take 30 minutes. Moreover, it doesn't dictate how much of it will be burnt at 15 minutes, so measuring halfway can also be incorrect. Since the wording says "burn out," the flames are not even gauranteed to cover all of the incense piece, but may remain isolated at the tip, and then extinguish without spreading more than a millimeter. It doesn't even have to do that.
Well then..
Next, let's try to solve this problem.Any questions?You have 2 incense sticks, each of which burns out in 30 minutes. Using these, how can you accurately measure out 45 minutes?Ooh, me! ♪Yes'm...Hm? Okay, Cirno.Um--Shut up and solve it.Is there really a situation in which you'd have no clock, but you do have incense sticks and a match, and need to precisely measure 45 minutes~?