Saturday, September 4, 2010

PUZZLE: Cell Division

A biochemist is cultivating living cells. Each cell splits into two cells after one minute.

One minute later the two cells split to make four, then the four become eight, and so on. Every minute, the number of cells doubles.

Assume that it takes an hour for one cell to grow until a bottle is filled. If a chemist starts with two cells, how long will it take to fill the same bottle.

This version is from The Tokyo Puzzles, by Kobon Fujimura

2 comments:

Chris Mildebrandt said...

Previously, Eye of the Frog....found out how to change my name finally. :)

59 minutes

Thomas L. McDonald said...

Wow, that was fast, and right!

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