Answer to question #26

26. A man has built three houses. Nearby there are gas water and electric plants. The man wishes to connect all three houses to each of the gas, water and electricity supplies.
    
    Unfortunately the pipes and cables must not cross each other. How would you connect each of the 3 houses to each of the gas, water and electricityic supplies???

This puzzle was also e-mailed to me through this website. I receive it once or twice a month so i thought it was about time i wrote out the answer. Unlike most of the problems on my site there is something of a trick to this one.

Firstly, lets be sure we're clear of the layout, (i know the diagram is a bit old school.)

click to enlage

Now it's just a matter of connecting up all the houses with all the suppliers...

Most people will get as far as connecting up 2 of the houses with three of the suppliers, and one of the houses with only two... At this point, unless you can see the trick, you get stuck.

Click to enlarge

So the trick now is to connect the final supplier to the final house.

In this case this is done by passing the gas supply to the second house through the first house and so not crosing any of the other pipes and cables.

Easy when you know how ;)

 

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