Four sheep
Farmer Giles has four sheep. One day, he notices that they are standing in such a way that they are all the same distance away from each other. How can this be so?
Labels: lateral thinking
posted by Chris at
3:03 PM
13 Comments:
.....S....
.....H....
.....E....
.....E....
SHEEPEESH
.....E....
.....E....
.....H....
.....S....
Probably wrong, but the sheep stand as depicted with noses together.
Think in 3 dimensions! For 4 sheep to be equidistant they must be arranged in a tetrahedron, so I think one sheep is standing on a hill and the other three are arranged in an equilateral triangle around the base of the hill. Now.. GET ORRFF MOI LAAAND!
I'd love to say that Zaux has it by a nose, but I can't :( Simon H has got the correct answer :)
good job Simon ...can't believe I didn't think 3-D
I like the by a nose answer better ... much more ToM :-)
One of your sheep is spelled wrong zaux
wrong spelling? ... I know ... typo ... sometimes, I'm a typing wizard
Maybe that one's dyslexic!
there standing in the shape of a square
Hi Anonymous. Then the ones on opposite sides of the square are further apart than the ones next to each other.
If the sheep are all facing the same way and are identical, the tetrahedron arrangement makes every part of each sheep be the same distance to the corresponding part on the other three sheep.
So why doesn't the nose-in answer work? Assuming the noses are pointy and all four touch in a single point, the sheep are all at zero inches from each other. Is it just disqualified as an answer because their other parts end up forming a square and hence are not all equidistant?
Hi Ross. Opposite sheep are further apart than adjacent sheep. I'll accept, but only just, that their noses are equally far apart.
Hi Ross, you have given the reason for rejecting the "+" arrangement.
The tetrahedron is obviously better than the "+" or the "□" arrangement.
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