Riddle time!

This is a riddle I caught today and was able to solve all by myself without any external help and/or hints.
Although it took me almost an hour to come with the full explanation
IMHO, it's quite challenging.
If it's not, then maybe I'm getting too old already or am simply too stupid...

So here are the rules:
Don't 'guess' answers and potentially helping others as they ruin the fun aspect of solving riddles.
It's not a group activity!
But do guess if this thread sinks to page 2 of this forum to prevent this thread of dying a silent death...

Eternal fame and a cookie goes to the one that solves it.
Time for the riddle!

Johnny always travels by train to go to work. The train always arrives at 6 where his wife awaits to pick him up.
But one day he caught an early train and arrived at 5, so decided to start walking and walk towards home to catch his wife.
By the time he got home he was 10 minutes early compared to the time he used to arrive at.
How much time did Johnny spent walking?

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I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

Ooooh, you're a right b****rd, Zaz! I was just about to go to bed too!

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Everyone knows that million-to-one chances happen 9 times out of 10; indeed, it's a common requirement in fairy tales. If the human didn't have to overcome huge odds, what would be the point? Terry Pratchett - The Science Of Discworld

GPGSL S5 Race driver for IED.

50 minutes

we dont know what time he usually arrives home, only what time he gets picked up from off teh train, so its impossible to tell!

Sim

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All Hail The New York Giants - Winners of Superbowl XXI, XXV and XLII!

"I'd love to know what goes on in that crazy head of yours sometimes, Sim..." - Locke Cole

That's what I was going to say :P

55 minutes.

Not sure i can explain my reasoning well though

Assuming the he got the before his wife left to pick him up.

If his wife picks him up at 6 they still have to drive home, so the time they get back would be 6 + "drive time"

Assuming his wife didn't set off and pick him up mid way then he arrivels home at 6+drive-10. If he got back just in time to catch his wife then the journey time home would be 5 minutes, 10 minutes round trip in the car.

It doesn't say how he normally gets home either. He travels by train to get to work, but the journey is the return leg, which he could use a bus for normally for all we know.

gav Wrote:
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> It doesn't say how he normally gets home either.
> He travels by train to get to work, but the
> journey is the return leg, which he could use a
> bus for normally for all we know.


i second this



GPGSL WDC Season 4

Its impossible to tell because you dont know long it takes to get home once his wife has picked him up.

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He walked half of the way, then he met his wife and got the car for the rest of the journey. Therefore getting a car is much quicker than walking. Therefore we cannot work out the answer because we do not know the speeds that the person and the car travel at.

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Team Owner of ItalianEnglish Dynamics in GPG Super League
GP4 Season 5: 7) Jethro Walters. 8) Zsigmond Somogyi. TD) Stuart Ingers and Joel Henrique
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This is a very unclear riddle, but we need the wife's journey time from home to the train station and then it's

(1Hr + Home Journey time) -10m

assuming they waste 0 time meeting up and so on. The riddle still doesn't say whether he arrives at the station at 6 in the morning to go TO work or arrives home to go BACK from work...

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johnny doesn't have a wife, he's gay

riddle solved, thread can be closed now...

The riddle is quite open ended, that's why you must come up with senseless replies like mine :p

This may be a long shot but I think the answer is nothing, as you say in the question, how much time did Johnny spent on walking? I mean you can't spend on time can you? Probably wrong.

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Team Owner of ItalianEnglish Dynamics in GPG Super League
GP4 Season 5: 7) Jethro Walters. 8) Zsigmond Somogyi. TD) Stuart Ingers and Joel Henrique
GP3 Season 5: 14) Nathan Turner. 15) Tobias Kederer.
6 Time Race Winners



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2007 10:42PM by Gaulty.

i'd say that was just a typo - it'll be something crazy like his wife's the train or the train driver or he's the station master or whatever. I'm in no mood or state to think it through though so good luck someone else

october?


Jenson drives it like he owns it; Lewis drives it like he stole it

Yeah it's a typo. Remember that English is not my native language

Although Advong says he doesn't fully understands why, he has the correct answer.
There are a few things you can tell:
He normally doesn't arrive at home before 18:00, so in this example he cannot arrive before 17:50 (as he is 10 minutes earlier than normal)
So therefore, the walk simply cannot take less than 50 minutes. that's a fact.
But he started walking to catch his wife to pick him up. His wife needs to travel towards the station and the time it takes is the same time it takes to return home.
And there are no such things as traffic jams etc in riddles :P

Fact is that he caught his wife on 50% of the distance driven by the time they got home.
The time they gained at the end is 10 minutes, so he caught his halfway of that advantage and therefore gained another 5 minutes, which makes 55 minutes.

To prove my theory here are some examples:

Y=meeting time

10 minute drive from the station
1. 17:50 (she leaves home)
2. Y
3. 18:00 + 10 - 10 = 18:00
Y = 17:50 + (10min / 2) = 17:55

34 minute drive
1. 17:26
2. Y
3. 18:00 + 34 - 10 = 18:24

Y = 17:26 + (58 /2) = 17:26 + 29 = 17:55



For those who don't really like the formula-like notation here's a more story-like one :P

Imagine it takes 30 minutes to go to the station to pick up johnny, then the wife has to leave home at 17:30
To get home 10 minutes earlier than normal they would have to arrive at 18:20.
Johnny has to catch his wife halfway her ride so that would be at 17:55 which is 55 minutes after his arrival at the station.

If it takes 60 minutes to drive to the station she would have to leave at 17:00 and their normal time of arrival would be at 19:00. To be ten minutes early, they would have to arrive at 18:50.
1:50 / 2 = 55 minutes.

You can use any time and it will give the same result.

Anyway, Advong is the winner so here's the cookie

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I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

Fact is that he caught his wife on 50% of the distance driven by the time they got home.

How are we supposed to know that? I suspect Advong from cheating :P

Yes, you didn't actually say he caught his wife along the way, let alone that it was halfway, otherwise it would have been pretty obvious :|

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Well, he did say that he was walking to catch his wife, and I just figured out that he means Johnny meets her halfway because, of course, however far she has to drive to catch him, she has to drive the same distance back, so they do meet halfway through her journey, just not necessarily halfway through the original journey to the station.