Question

Take a break and solve this puzzle..A king asks a learned man to visit his palace. The man says I will come any day next month. But give me gold in gms equal to the date on which I come. The king asks the jeweler to make rings of 1 to 31 gms. The jeweler was smart and makes only 5 rings. What was the weights of those rings?

Answer 1

according to me the answer should be any number between 1 to 31

Answer 2

1, 2, 4, 8, 16
The first ring is easy: has to be 1g. Since our objective is to have minimum rings, the second ring has to be of 2g so that the two rings together can weigh 3g. The next date to take care of is 4, so the third ring therefore has to be of 4g, which with the first two rings will be 7g and will take care of all dates up to 7. Consequently, the fourth ring is of 8g and along with the first three rings will take care of up to 15th of the month. So the last ring has to be 16g. The total weight of all of these will be 31g and will take care of all possible dates. If you think about it more logically, it is a geometric progression.