by ohthatpatrick Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:51 pm
This is a confusing inference, no doubt.
The 3rd rule of setup #4 is that each 30 minute is immediately followed by a 60 minute.
We could diagram that conditionally as:
30 --> 60 immediately after
The last rule tells us that the 4th spot will be 30 minutes.
__ __ __ 30 __ __
According to this rule, we have to put a 60 immediately after that 30.
__ __ __ 30 60 __
But, we don't want to stop there. We want to think about if there are any spots where we could NOT put a 30, because there would be no way to follow the rule.
Could we put a 30 in spot 1? Sure, that would force us to put a 60 in spot 2, which seems fine.
Could we put a 30 in spot 2? Sure, that would force us to put a 60 in spot 3, which seems fine.
Could we put a 30 in spot 3? No. That would force us to put a 60 in spot 4, which we can't do.
Since we can't put a 30 in spot 3, we must put a 60 in spot 3.
__ __ 60 30 60 __
Could we put a 30 in spot 6? No. That would force us to put a 60 in spot 7, but there is no spot 7.
Since we can't put a 30 in spot 6, we must put a 60 in spot 6.
__ __ 60 30 60 60
Let me know if you still have any questions about this.