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Can you solve the stolen rubies riddle? - Dennis Shasha

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TEDEd Animation

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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.

(Feedback Multi-pass Ruby Game) This is just like the Multi-pass Ruby Game, but here you can get feedback during each pass. Suppose the boxes are laid out in left-to-right order and you may state your request for the leftmost box first, then, based on how many rubies you receive (but, as usual, without seeing how many are left), state your request for the middle box, and then the rightmost one. When you are done, you can repeat this process (left, then middle, then right). You do this for each pass. What happens?

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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

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