Mungo wrote:Using a slight variation on the 'Seal-Frank' method (the S-K method) it is quite easy to have four rows each with five trees using no more and no less than ten trees (It could be done with five, but the question said ten)
We lay out two parallel rows of five trees. If the S-K method allows one row to be considered as six rows then it must allow one row to be considered as two rows. If each of the parallel rows is regarded as being two rows and if each of the parallel rows has five trees on it then we have four rows each with five trees and we have used ten trees.
It is possible, using the S-K method, to have an infinite number of rows with each of the rows having five trees on it using only five trees.
There is however a drawback with the original version of the S-K method which still exists with the variation. When the trees have been planted and you send your bill to the owner of the plantation, it seems likely that when you say "That row of ten trees is in fact six rows of trees" you might have some extensive explaning to do. Even more so when he sees that the plantation he'd asked for in the question turns out to be a single file.
I think SealPoet was using irony here, Mungo -- and I suspect he knew it. That was the reason he gave the caveat at the end of his post.
I was simply seconding his irony -- and pointing out that I thought his explanation was clear.
Now, with your help, we all know what we knew before. This was not what Excaliber had in mind.
Wonder where he/she is. Ex never did come back to confirm if the initial wording was incorrect -- as we all suspect it is.
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