🌿 Lily Pad Puzzle | A Clever Take on Exponential Growth
How fast do lily pads grow?
Maidin mhaith, quizzers! 👋 We’ve made it to the final puzzle in our mini-series, if you missed them, you can still catch part one and part two.
Today’s riddle is deceptively simple, it’s about lily pads, doubling, and time. But beneath the surface, it’s a brilliant way to test how well we grasp exponential growth, the kind of pattern that starts slow… then suddenly takes off.
This one has stumped plenty of smart people, including students in real university experiments. Think you can spot the trick?
Let’s find out…
Question: In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?
Solving the puzzle
Here’s where it all clicks — reveal the steps below.
Step 1: Spot the pattern
The lily pad patch doubles in size each day, that’s exponential growth. Small at first, then it suddenly explodes.
Step 2: Work backwards
If the lake is fully covered on Day 48, then it must have been only half covered on Day 47. That’s the nature of doubling, the previous day has half the size.
Step 3: Final answer
So, the lake was half covered on Day 47. One day later, it doubled to fill the whole thing.
This puzzle reveals just how unintuitive exponential growth can be. It sneaks up on you, slow at first, then suddenly overwhelming. It’s a powerful concept with real-world implications, from finance to pandemics.
If you enjoyed this mini-series, (here's part one | part two if you missed them), let me know! And if you’re hungry for more brain-twisting quizzes and puzzles, stay tuned — or better yet, try sharing one of these questions with a friend and watch their gears turn.
Until next time… keep thinking sharp, agus slán go fóill!
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How did you get on? Got thoughts, scores, or reckon you’ve spotted something? Drop your comments below! ✍️
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