Can you solve the stolen rubies riddle? - Dennis Shasha
3,726,327 Views
4,840 Questions Answered
Let’s Begin…
Townspeople are demanding that a corrupt merchant’s collection of 30 rubies be confiscated to reimburse the victims of his schemes. The king announces that the fine will be determined through a game of wits between the merchant and the king’s most clever advisor – you. Can you outfox the merchant and win back the greatest amount of rubies to help his victims? Dennis Shasha shows how.
(Multi-pass Ruby Game) You can play this game with friends. Here is the general formulation: there are b boxes with r rubies (feel free to use less valuable pieces) overall and one box has d more rubies than one other box and there is a certain minimum per box m. You can play the one-pass version where you have to lay out all your cards at once with the usual rules or you can play a two, three, … pass scenario in which you play this repeatedly. What happens?
Sign in to answer questionAbout TED-Ed Animations
TED-Ed Animations feature the words and ideas of educators brought to life by professional animators. Are you an educator or animator interested in creating a TED-Ed Animation? Nominate yourself here »
Meet The Creators
- Educator Dennis Shasha
- Director Milos Zivkov
- Narrator Addison Anderson
- Illustrator Stevica Zivkov
- Animator Milos Zivkov
- Character Designer Milos Zivkov
- Content Producer Gerta Xhelo
- Editorial Producer Alex Rosenthal
- Associate Producer Bethany Cutmore-Scott
- Fact-Checker Brian Gutierrez