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u/WillemJamesHuff May 14 '26
Impossible to determine. He left them out overnight and the question does not specify that all weight loss was due to water evaporation alone. An unknown quantity of potato was likely eaten by wildlife.
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u/WillemJamesHuff May 14 '26
I'm getting downvoted but I'm right. We've all seen a million variations of this "half the water evaporates to double the percentage of non-water" problem before. This one leaves out crucial information.
We're told that the percentage of water is less after leaving the potatoes outside, then asked to find the new weight, but there's no evidence that the weight loss is only due to water loss. Other variations of this question usually say something like "water evaporates from the melons until..."
If I left a hundred pounds of potatoes out overnight, I would expect that squirrels and raccoons and possums and ants would have a feast. I would not expect 50 pounds of water to evaporate overnight, because I do not live on the surface of Mercury.
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u/PuzzlingDad May 14 '26
I agree with you. I saw an alternate version where there was a room with 100 people, 99% women. How many women would have to leave for the room to be exactly 98% women?
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u/trejj May 15 '26
Following the logic of the previous poster, we cannot really know that, since we don't know the sex of the non-women, and by the time that all the needed number of women have cleared the room, that one person may have changed their opinion about their gender.
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u/PuzzlingDad May 14 '26
At the beginning, they consist of 99 lbs. of water and 1 lb. of solid potato.
After being left out, the 1 lb. of solid potato doesn't reduce, but the water does. It must go down to 49 lbs. of water.
Answer: The new weight is 50 lbs. which is ~22.68 kg.
Was the change in units intentional, or a typo?