Answer:
| | 17 trunks | 20
trunks | 23 trunks | 26
trunks |
| Captains: | Barque | Drake | Neville | Corsair |
| Ships: | Zephyr | Poseidon | Black Wind | Halcyon |
| Doubloons: | 2000 | 1000 | 4000 | 3000 |
To approach this problem, I first decide which attribute (trunks,
captain, ship name, or doubloons) is the one I will choose as an
"anchor", about which I will link all the other
attributes. The best anchor to choose is the one that is mentioned
in the most clues. Each of the clues mentions trunks, so I use this
as the anchor.
To start, I make a table that relates the other attributes to the
number of trunks:
| | 17 trunks | 20
trunks | 23 trunks | 26
trunks |
| Captains: | | | | |
| Ships: | | | | |
| Doubloons: | | | | |
Then I develop additional rules from the first 6. I use these
rules to fill in the table.
7. The ship with 17 trunks is the Zephyr because not Poseidon (rule 1), Halcyon
(rule 3), or Black Wind (rule 4).
8. The ship with 20 trunks is the Poseidon (rules 7, 1)
9. The ship with 26 trunks has 3000 doubloons, because it has at least 3000
(rule 5) and not 4000 (rule 6)
At this point, I'm faced with a complicated decision. I know the
ships with 23 and 26 trunks are the Halcyon and the Black Wind, but I'm
not sure which order to put them in the table. If I put the Black
Wind in the last column, then it would have 3 more trunks than the
Halcyon. Rule 4 would tell us that the Halcyon is carrying the least
amount of gold. Rule 3, however, tells us the Halcyon can't have
just 1000 doubloons. So the Black Wind can't go in the last column.
10. The ship with 23 trunks is the Black Wind. (Suppose the Black Wind had 26 trunks. Then the Halcyon would have 23 trunks, and rule 4 says it would have 1000 doubloons, but rule 3 tells us the Halcyon has more than 1000 doubloons.)
11. The ship with 26 trunks is the Halcyon, because all the other ships have other numbers of trunks.
At this point, all the ships have been placed in the table:
| | 17 trunks | 20
trunks | 23 trunks | 26
trunks |
| Captains: | | | | |
| Ships: | Zephyr (7) | Poseidon (8) | Black Wind (10) | Halcyon (11) |
| Doubloons: | | | | 3000 (9) |
12. The ship with 20 trunks has 1000 doubloons (rule 4)
13. The ship with 17 trunks has 2000 doubloons (Rule 3 says < 3000, rule 12 tells us not 1000)
14. The ship with 23 trunks has 4000 doubloons because all the other ships have other numbers of doubloons.
15. The ship with 20 trunks is Captain Drake's (rule 5)
16. The ship with 26 trunks is Captain Corsair's (rule 6)
17. The ship with 17 trunks is Captain Barque's (rule 2, and the other ships have other captains)
18. The ship with 23 trunks is Captain Neville's (process of
elimination)
| | 17 trunks | 20
trunks | 23 trunks | 26
trunks |
| Captains: | Barque (17) | Drake (15) | Neville (18) | Corsair (16) |
| Ships: | Zephyr (7) | Poseidon (8) | Black Wind (10) | Halcyon (11) |
| Doubloons: | 2000 (13) | 1000 (12) | 4000 (14) | 3000 (9) |
Related pages in this website
See the NEXT puzzle in
the Academic Decathlon 2004 Logic Quiz
| 
