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Fri 5 Dec, 2003 03:12 pm
After using the same method that the tractor took to get to the Island, you drop in on a party of the forest people and notice Prof. Chaos with an evil look in her eye. Folks look bored, so she decides to engage in a little mischief. "I will give this $100 bill to the highest bidder. The only rule is that the person who bids the second highest amount will also have to pay me that bid. The highest bidder pays the high bid and takes the bill, even if the highest bid is only 5 cents."
People start to murmur. Then you hear "A nickel!". "A Dime!". "Two Dollars!"...
Question: what is Prof. Chaos up to?
(Dont kill yourself on this one, folks. I don't need pages and pages of Professor Chaos' background and such =P)
Ah! What a sneaky, conniving way to get money. Nobody will be willing to pay = or more than 100 dollars to get it, so the highest bid possible is 99.99. As soon as that person pays it, she gets 199.98, because the second highest bidder will pay it too. Dr. Chaos gets money, as long as the highest bid is more than 50$. The highest bidder gets 1 penny, and the second highest bidder loses out.
To thwart the system, if this thought runs through your head fast enough, offer 100$, immediately after somebody else says something. You pay nothing, you started with nothing, and the person who spoke first (a nickel!) is out 100$. Laugh at them.
Clever! A lose/lose situation (apart from Chaos that is!)
Zex
I wouldn't be so sure that $99.99 would be the highest bid. I suggest that 'councils of desperation' might take the bids beyond this. After all. if the last-but-one bid was $90 and the last was $99.99, the one who made the last-but-one bid is out $90 if he does not bid and breaks even if he does get it for $100. But then the one who bid $99.99 is out $99.99 if he stops there and is only out $1 if he now bids $101. And so it continues.
This must rank as one of the sneakiest and most deceptive ploys ever - and I love it!
I love all your answers...
funny, i just said $2.10
"People start to murmur. Then you hear "A nickel!". "A Dime!". "Two Dollars!"...
Question: what is Prof. Chaos up to? "
So far, two dollars plus a dime, so she's up to 2.10 =P
Oh! I read it as the second highest bidder would have to pay the high bid as well. It still works about the same though.
Tetsuo
A really great problem. The solution was . . . erm . . . uh . . . It was a great problem!
Zex...i think you're right, and i read it wrong. in that case, my answer is 4 dollars =P
The highest bid is only limited by the stupidity of the bidders. If the bidders are smart enough to work out the point Mungo made but stupid enough to still be bidding then it would come down to pride. Who is willing to bow out and accept the loss first.
The riddle actually asks what is prof. chaos up to though, and to that I would say she's trying to find out how dumb and proud these people are.
Certainly by the time it gets to $99.99 there's only going to be 2 people bidding to avoid a bigger loss. By now, they'd realize that they are going to take a loss no matter what. So the bidding should go...
$99.99
$100
$200
At which point it would end since it makes no sense to raise it.
This way both of them end up with a $100 loss and the professor walks away with $200 net profit.
Or at anytime they can agree to stop bidding futher and split the money.
The smartest thing to do would have been to bid 1 cent, take the $100, and split it between everyone. That leaves the professor with a $99.99 loss.
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