Say that someone said here are three fifty pound bags of U.S. coins. One bag contains dimes, one contain quarters, and one contains half-dollars. You can take any one of these three bags, but you have 5 seconds to decide. Which bag do you take?

-glurk

(Answer to be revealed later, if no one finds it first.)

Quarters. It’s a five second decision, so a compromise between weight and value might be the best. As far as I could see, however, they are all the same. So obviously the weight of the coins had been choosen to make this decision easy..all bags contain the same value at the same weight. So in fact to choose the dime bag is the most efficient decision (because you rather do not have to change..if your assumption is that most prices are on a .25 or .75 basis, the bag with quarters would be the best).

QT

Since I don’t know the weight to value ratios (if any difference?) I’d probably go with the half-dollars because of my dislike for small coins.

All I can say is that, due to the high of the dollar against the real (Brazilian currency) 36.42% this year. Any bag serves I (in less than 2 seconds)

Wel you told me I can only take "any" one – so I choose all 3 bags! Didn’t say I can only choose 1 bag specifically.

Hope I didn’t get this wrong. Quickest answer I could think up given the odd wording.

Doesn’t matter which bag.

If I only have 5 seconds to decide I’m taking the closest one to me.

I take bag number one. Because then I have all three.

Step 1. Take any of the bags.
Step 2. Knock the offerer unconscious with it.
Step 3. Take all the bags.

Dimes weigh next to nothing so if it’s not a trick question…dimes.

Dimes weigh next to nothing so if it’s not a trick question…dimes.

I was thinking the same thing. I would take the dimes.

Say that someone said here are three fifty pound bags…

Those are heavy bags, but I’d care about which had the most value in them. If there isn’t a scale (to weigh the coins that are in the 50 pound bags), or time to weigh them, I’d take the bag that was the fullest. That could probably be determined visually and quickly.

Or… Since I can have any bag, I’d take the bag nearest me, and put the contents of the other 2 bags inside it too.

I can only take one bag… doesn’t say I can’t take all the coins.

To clarify-

This is not meant to be a word problem or any trickery like that. I just worded it rather poorly, to be honest. So let me re-state:

Bag #1 contains exactly 50 pounds of U.S. dimes, plus the weight of the bag itself.
Bag #2 contains exactly 50 pounds of U.S. quarters, plus the weight of the bag itself.
Bag #3 contains exactly 50 pounds of U.S. half-dollars, plus the weight of the bag itself.

You may not open them, inspect them, combine them, or take more than one of them.
As of yet, no one has really posted the answer I was hoping for, so I will leave the question open.

-glurk

Nope would have to tip some out as we aren’t allowed to pick up such a heavy weight. Darn.

A fifty cent piece weighs 11.34 grams. There are 22,679.6 grams in a pound. That makes 1,133,980 grams for 50 lbs. Divide that by 11.34 and you get approximately 99,998 half dollars in a 50 pound bag, which equals out to $49,999.

A dime weighs 2.268 grams. That’s approximately 499,991 dimes or $49,999.

A quarter weighs 5.67 grams. That is approximately 199,996 quarters, which equals….. $49,999.

Who would have thought that 50 lb. bags of 3 different coins would equal the same amount? Is my prize a 50 lb bag of 100 dollar bills??? That would mean you owe me roughly $2.27 million