The three cups problem is a mathematical puzzle that, in its most common form, cannot be solved. Starting with three cups, you place one of the cups upside down and the other two right-side up. The objective is to turn all cups right-side up in no more than six moves. You must turn over exactly two cups at each move.
Famous quotes containing the words cups and/or problem:
“Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line—the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea. It was a phase of this problem that caused the Civil War.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)