Brain Teasers
Men and Monkeys
On one side of a river are three humans, one big monkey, two small monkeys, and one boat. Each of the humans and the big monkey are strong enough to row the boat. The boat can fit one or two bodies (regardless of size). If at any time at either side of the river the monkeys outnumber the humans, the monkeys will eat the humans. How do you get everyone on the other side of the river alive?
Answer
Let:h=human
b=big monkey
s=small monkey
1. Row b and s over ( hhhs / bs )
2. Row b back ( hhhbs / s )
3. Row b and s over ( hhh / bss )
4. Row b back ( hhhb / ss )
5. Row h and h over ( hb / hhss )
6. Row h and s back ( hhbs / hs )
7. Row h and b over ( hs / hhbs )
8. Row h and s back ( hhss / hb )
9. Row h and h over ( ss / hhhb )
10. Row b back ( bss / hhh )
11. Row b and s over ( s / hhhbs )
12. Row b back ( bs / hhhs )
13. Row b and s over ( / hhhbss )
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Comments
clever one
Clever teaser
Smart! Had me stumped :-)
I loved it!
Fun Teaser! I do think, however, that people should not travel with savages who eat missionaries, foxes and chickens at the same time, and certainly not with cannibalistic monkeys!
Common teaser, different wording. Although its great and i love it
Dec 29, 2004
Great teaser! i had fun with this one. Thanks!
I have seen a similar riddle, but it had a fox, a chicken, and a bowl of corn on two sides of a river. You could only take one thing across at a time. It takes a while to figure it out, but it is a good one too. I liked your teaser. It was good exercise for my brain.
It's fun!! But I can't imagine a big monkey rowing a boat.
Good teaser, I had to do a problem very similiar to this one in one of my junior high school math classes, so I had to remember the answer from WAY back then.
i had the one with the fox the chicken and the bowl of corn and you could bring 2 across at a time. It was easy then but this one was harder
Both of those teasers are on addictinggames.com... the first one is super easy, this one is fairly difficult.
I'm on break so this one made my brain hurt
good one, i got it!!! that was easy
Dec 29, 2004
I almost got to the end and then I realized the humans would have been eaten after the third boat ride! Great teaser! I remember I had one like this with the Simpsons in class and if Homer was left with Bart, Bart would be stranggled it was cool!
I love the simpsons! I saw that episode too! why didn't I think of that??
At least, I think that was an episode......I'm really tired
A bit difficult, but fun!
I found a way to do it in less moves
hard... takes a bit too long to figure out.
a course, thats just me.
a course, thats just me.
clever but unoriginal...seen many like it...but good...fun 2 figure out
Poor big monkey, he sure did a lot of rowing.
Dec 29, 2004
it's like the goats and the lions one not really creative but i like that there were monkeys!!
i didn't do it right...i kept whoever was rowing in the boat, not putting them on shore when they went over... that was a good one though! i just signed up, so i am looking forward to these!
This was a very good teaser, a little hard but good
I want to know how they convinced a monkey to row boat and come back again with the right cargo
This took me forever to solve! But I'm glad I persisted. This was a great teaser that really got me thinking hard.
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