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Solution to: Fun with Fuses

With only two fuses that burn exactly one hour, one can measure three quarters of an hour accurately, by lighting the first fuse at both ends and the other fuse at one end simultaneously. When the first fuse is burnt out after exactly half an hour (!) you know that the second fuse still has exactly half an hour to go before it will be burnt completely, but we do not wait for that. We now also light the other end of the second fuse. This means that the second fuse will now be burnt completely after another quarter of an hour, which adds up to exactly three quarters of an hour since we started lighting the first fuse!


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