Genius Corner: Gain fame with our brain game

Try this one. Send your answer to editnews@coe.berkeley.edu, and include your name, major and class year. The first person to e-mail the right answer will have his or her name printed in the next issue of Engineering News along with the answer. Twice a semester, one of the biweekly winners will be picked at random to win two movie tickets, courtesy of Berkeley Engineering Alumni Relations. Plus, more chances to win! At the end of the semester, entrants who didn’t win will be automatically entered into a drawing to win a Berkeley Engineering mug and T-shirt.

An unlimited supply of gasoline is available at one edge of a desert 800 miles wide, but there is no source in the desert itself. A truck can carry enough gasoline to go 500 miles (this will be called one “load”), and it can build up its own refueling station at any spot along the way. These caches may be any size, and it is assumed that there is no evaporation loss. What is the minimum amount (in loads) of gasoline the truck will require in order to cross the desert? Is there a limit to the width of a desert the truck can cross?

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