Five Men and Two Bridges

In the puzzle Crossing the Bridge, we met four people who needed to cross a bridge at night. In this puzzle there are five people who have to cross two sequential bridges at night. Like in the earlier puzzle, there are some hindrances:

The bridges can only support two people crossing at a time.

Each person has a different speed in which they can cross: 10 minutes, 7 minutes, 5 minutes, 2 minutes, and 1 minute.

They only have two flashlights to share between them. A pair of people can share one flashlight, which means there can be one pair of people on each of the two bridges at the same time.

If the short time it takes to get from the first bridge to the second can be ignored, what is the shortest amount of time it will take for all five people to cross both bridges?

Crossing the Bridge

Four men must cross an old bridge that spans a raging river. I'm not sure, but it might be the same river that the Victorian couples and the man with the tiger and goat needed to cross as well. The bridge is old and rickety and can only support two men crossing at once. To make matters even worse, it is pitch black and they have only one flashlight to share between them, which means that after two men have crossed one must return with the flashlight. Each of the men has differing abilities and some take more time to cross than the others. The times it takes for each man to cross are: 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, and 10 minutes. When crossing in pairs, they can only cross as fast as the slowest man can go.

Can you find a way for all four men to cross in 17 minutes or less?

The Victorian Boat Ride

There are three couples trekking across the countryside when they come to a river that is too deep and to wide for them to swim across. On the near shore is a boat which they can use to cross the river, but there are some complications that keep them from crossing together.

First of all, the boat is only large enough to carry two people at a time.

Secondly, the couples, being Victorian, are very mindful of proper etiquette and it would be completely improper for a woman to be in the company of another man unless her husband is present.

How can all six people cross the river with a maximum of 2 people crossing at any one time and no woman being in the presence of a man unless her husband is also present?

A Cabbage, a Tiger, and a Goat

Here's an old one, but a good one--it's probably the first logic puzzle anyone ever posed to me:


In this logic puzzle, a man is traveling with a tiger, a goat, and a cabbage. No one ever provided a convincing explanation for why he would be travelling with such a strange assortment--perhaps he was French. At some point in his journey the man came to a river which was too deep to wade across, and too wide to swim across so he was in a quandary on how to continue. He noticed a small boat tied to the near shore, but the boat was too small to hold all his belongings, but was large enough that he could safely row across with one belonging at a time. The problem he faced was that if he rowed across with the tiger then the goat would eat the cabbage, and if he rowed across with the cabbage, the tiger would eat the goat.

How could the man cross the river safely with all his belongings intact?