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Today Puzzle #531

Puzzle No. 531 – Thursday 25 July

A girl creeps downstairs precisely six minutes before her parents wake up, to secretly raid her remaining pile of chocolate eggs. Within the pile are: 6 small eggs, which each take 1 minute to eat; 3 medium sized eggs, which each takes 2 minutes to eat; and 2 large eggs, which each takes 3 minutes to eat. Given a medium egg is twice the weight of a small egg, and a large egg is twice more, what is the girl's optimal strategy for consuming as much chocolate as possible without being caught?

Today’s #PuzzleForToday has been set by Dr Geoff Evatt, School of Mathematics, University of Manchester

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The 2 large eggs.

One can find this by looking at all possible combinations of eating eggs within the 6 minute window of opportunity. i.e. 6S gives 6 units of chocolate, 4S+1M gives 6 units of chocolate, 2S+2M gives 6 units of chocolate, 3M gives 6 units of chocolate, 1L,1M,1S gives 7 units of chocolate, and 2L gives 8 units of chocolate. All times taken here are six minutes long.

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