My friend gave a question to me. I am not sure if it is an original puzzle, but he has 2 lines of Christmas lights and 3 circular timers with 96 switches apiece. Each switch turns on power for 15 minutes.
How can you arrange the timers, switches and lights — as far in advance as possible — so that lights would be on for 24 hours on Christmas day?
All lights are off for the last 15 minutes before Christmas.
For the next 24 hours, some lights are on at each point in time. (Some may also be off.)
All lights are off again for the 15 minutes after that.
No constraints outside of the 24 1/2 hours just described, except:
- Any 24-hour interval before Christmas has all lights off for at least 15 minutes.
One timer may plug into another.
The timers operate as in this video. I am sure a lot of you have seen them in real life.
Note: This gem of a puzzle was given a make-over after a year and a half of being closed. The original poster might not be around to officially accept a solution. (Attempts were made to reach the poster half a year ago.)
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