Braingle: 'A Suspension Bridge' Brain Teaser

A Suspension Bridge

Logic puzzles require you to think. You will have to be logical in your reasoning.

Puzzle ID:	#9487
Fun:	(2.59)
Difficulty:	(1.94)
Category:	Logic
Submitted By:	lesternoronha1

Before airplanes were invented, a suspension bridge was being planned to span a violent river. There was no way a boat could carry the suspension cables across the violent water, and the bridge could not be built until the cables were in place. The builders decided to hold a contest to solve the problem. The contest was won by a young boy. Shortly thereafter the cables spanned the water.

What contest could have been used to solve this problem?

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Comments

(user deleted) Jan 10, 2003	Who was on the other side of the river to catch the presumably fallen kite, how did they get there, are they friendly, and why can the same method of crossing that they used (if they had crossed) not also be used to take across a different piece of string?
dewtell Jan 14, 2003	Presumably the person on the other side was able to cross at some point miles upstream or downstream of the intended bridge. Trying to walk a string many miles down the river while coordinating with someone on the opposite bank holding the other end of the string sounds a lot more challenging than just catching a kite.
jonnyonline Jan 16, 2003	you could also catapult, cannon, throw, lasso, etc. the cables across the river.
sillywilly Jan 21, 2003	"The builders offered a prize to the first person to fly a kite from one side to the other. " This contest is way too limiting, and therefore sub-optimal. The contest should have been to find the most novel way to run the cables to the other side. Let the contesants think of the ways to do this. Management 101.
Phily Jan 22, 2003	I think this has been done in the past. Not sure where though...
gooblah Feb 18, 2003	Well I think we all can agree that this wasn't a great teaser, time managment to cost and liability to workers would be too high Man. 102, find an easier place to cross. And to point out another flaw in the poor sods question historcally speacking, were there any bridges that spanned violent rivers prior to airplanes?
dakini Jun 09, 2003	Either the cable line wasn't very heavy, and therefore wouldn't have held the bridge, or the kite string wouldn't have held the cable. So either way, logically, this teaser wouldn't work. The concept was stil good though!
MrIxolite Aug 19, 2003	This teaser is fun, its meant to be fun. Geez you guys need to lighten up. And to the comment above, have you ever seen proper nylon kite string?. Its very tough.
MadDog72 Mar 19, 2006	Actually, it would work. The kite string would be able to support a significantly heavier rope. This rope could then be used to support an even heavier cable as it is dragged across. This could be repeated until the cable spanning the river is heavy enough to support the bridge.
dalfamnest Jul 28, 2010	Actually, it DID work!! Take a look at Wikipedia. It was a $5 prize, won by a 16 year old boy. My problem, however, is this is yet another directly copied teaser. It appears, almost word for word in a popular board game. It could have appeared in the Trivia section, and been educational. Let's maintain the standards of this site by at least adding something creative, adapting rather than copying!