Talk:Balanced ternary
re: draft task, because NevilleDNZ liked it so much
Many ThanX ;-) I confess that I might be a Nerd at heart and as I find it hard resist solving an especially annoying puzzle.
But now I have a hammer, where is the nail? An actual "real world" test case would be really sweet! Ironically I have yet to think of one. Ideas are invited...
e.g. from Wikipedia's Balanced ternary page: For example, a classical "2-pan" balance, with one weight for each power of 3, can weigh relatively heavy objects accurately with a small number of weights, by moving weights between the two pans and the table. For example, with weights for each power of 3 through 81, a 60-gram object (6010 = 11110) will be balanced perfectly with an 81 gram weight in the other pan, the 27 gram weight in its own pan, the 9 gram weight in the other pan, the 3 gram weight in its own pan, and the 1 gram weight set aside. This is an optimal solution in terms of the number of weights needed to weigh any object.
NevilleDNZ 04:44, 1 November 2011 (UTC)