Badger Tripos Part 1A

[mdavison]

2003 Paper 1 Question 3

A badger has volume VB, a snake has volume VS and a mushroom has volume VM (where VM << VB and VM << VS

Comments

[anonymous]

An infinitely long time - badgers are smart enough to leave through the door before they suffocate/get crushed.

Re:

[fenella]

but the room is sealed... the doors would be glued superglued shut, surely?

[naath]

So, 11*VB*4+3*2*VM+VS per sequence which takes 51 s. And the volume that we have to fill is xyz so we assume that Badgers eat Shrooms so the Mushrooms don't count for volume and what we need to do is divide xyz by (44*VB+S) to discover how many sequences we can get into the room and then multiply that by 51s to find out how long it takes to fill the room. We could subtract a few VS if snakes suceed in eating themselves entirely of course, and we really should consider that maybe this doesn't go in an interger no. of times, however to within an order of magnitude... the answer is
(xyz*51)/(44*VB+VS)

We could assume things about the relative volumes of snakes and badgers but I cba.

[dodgiedougie]

hey matt, long time no see, how u doing?