Bruce is an inmate in a large prison, and like most of the other
prisoners, he smokes cigarettes. During his time in the prison, Bruce
finds that if he has 3 cigarette butts, he can cram them together and
turn them into 1 full cigarette. Whenever he smokes a cigarette, it
turns into a cigarette butt.
One day, Bruce is in his cell talking to one of his cellmates, Steve.
"I
really want to smoke 5 cigarettes today, but all I have are these 10
cigarette butts," Bruce tells Steve. "I'm not sure that will be enough."
"Why
don't you borrow some of Tom's cigarette butts?" asks Steve, pointing
over to a small pile of cigarette butts on the bed of their third
cellmate, Tom, who is out for the day on a community service project.
"I
can't," Bruce says. "Tom always counts exactly how many cigarette butts
are in his pile, and he'd probably kill me if he notices that I had
taken any."
However, after thinking for a while, Bruce figures out a
way that he can smoke 5 cigarettes without angering Tom. What is his
plan?