Good point. I think the easy way to do it would be to double the cost of the last and subtract one.

(2^(n-1) * 2)-1 = (2^n) -1
(2^32) -1 = 4294967295 (cents)
$42,949,672.95, which agrees with your results.

Edit: I made a typo.

$42,949,672.95

That's more like it. This is reminiscent of the puzzler about the wise ass who had some king pay him a penny for the first square on a chess board and two pennies for the second, four for the next, and so on doubling the amount until the King figured out what was going on and had the guy beheaded.

You will have to wait for another nut until tomorrow, but I will off this little puzzle from another, unrelated book.

"How I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after the tough chapters involving quantum mechanics!"

Glatt, a heroic calculation !

But the answer depends on your assumption about "first nail"
1st leg: 1st nail = $0.01 ... 6 nails per shoe = $0.63
2nd leg: 1st nail = $0.01 ... 6 nails per shoe = $0.63
3rd leg: 1st nail = $0.01 ... 6 nails per shoe = $0.63
4th leg: 1st nail = $0.01 ... 6 nails per shoe = $0.63

Total: $2.52
Time to calculate: 15 seconds :D

4 hooves, 8 nails per hoof = 32 nails
2 to the 32 = $42,949,672.95

that's embarrassingly easy. I'm ashamed that I pulled out my calculator to add all those nails up. I should know better.

Edit: Wait a second. That's wrong.
Attachment 36375

He left out the "minus 1."

An my plan would have worked if it hadn't been for that meddling Jesus!

Today's nut brought to you by Squirell Nutkin!

The squirrel is on the tree, and he went around the tree, so yes, he went around the squirrel.

Does Jupiter go around the Earth?

Is there a treadmill involved?

Does Dark Matter surround Uranus?

This one messes with my space/time/direction dyslexia. I'm sure this ties into my objection to the 'lefty loosy righty tighty' adage, too.

If the squirrel were avoiding the dude in the same direction around the tree, how is he going around the squirrel?

The squirrel is not part of the tree, he's just on the tree.

What if it's a really big tree and the hunter is on the inside?

That hunter's so fat that when he sits around a squirrel, he really sits around a squirrel!

Why is skwirl so hard to spell correctly?

It's nyutken's fault.

Yes, the hunter goes around the squirrel. The two of them make concentric circles around the tree, with the hunter's circle completely enclosing the squirrel's circle.

eta: I missed glatt's answer. wtg glatt! twelve minutes, dang. I was sleeping!

East Coast advantage

B.S.

Squirrel goes around the tree. Dude is going around the tree, in his larger concentric circle, always opposite the squirrel.

He never goes around the squirrel.

He goes around the tree, which the squirrel happens to be on.

Of course I'll bow to your far superior minds. I did say that I have direction dyslexia and space/time continuum problems. Best to ignore me and don't explain it to me. I'll go away.

In about 30 years.

is this part in earnest?

rsvp

Infi wins this one.

it goes around it as much as an electron goes around a proton.

the hunter completes a circle which the squirl never leaves. he may never get 'behind' the skwurl, but he does go around it foshizzel. old wrong book.

Is that what the Book says?

What does the book say?

Because either I'm actually right and these geniuses are wrong (in which case they'll debate heavily, having never BEEN wrong) or I'm wrong and you'll tell me later that I'm wrong as you did when you accidentally thought I was right, or you're saying I'm right just to appease me.

I was asking an honest question, or giving my version of an answer (admittedly at a level far beneath some of you.) Watching you Einsteins do brain cartwheels AROUND me (because I'm not ON the tree) teaches me nothing, makes me feel stupid, and makes you look like jerks.

HEY. don't go giving that damned thing any more Capitalization Credibility than it already has.

Hunter =outside circle.
Squirrel = Brown circle
Tree = Black circle.

I agree, the hunter does circle the squirrel

(Thanks for trying to explain your reasoning to me, instead of dismissing my answer outright.)

The sqwirllll is not part of the tree. Here be my picture of the man walking around the squirrel. If the squirrel was advancing in circles opposite the man, in his bigger concentric circles, the man is not walking AROUND the squirrel because the squirrel isn't PART OF THE TREE. If the squirrel stayed there like an idiot, I'd change my answer. But that wasn't the question.

(Tree be round part in brown. Sqweeereeeel ees star. Man is explanatory. The Squirrel Not Part of Tree is before I found the text box.)

I don't see how having a divergent opinion makes ME a jerk, infi. if anything, your blubbering makes YOU look like one.

I'm not talking about a divergent opinion I'm talking about dismissiveness, and I wasn't necessarily talking to YOU.

So go fuck yourself jim, I'll just keep blubbering. You make baby monkey cry.

MOther fuckers, I'm just trying to participate. some of you are dismissive fucking know-it-alls and THEY can go fuck themselves too.

You try being treated like a second class serf by your 'friends' here and see how you feel. Kinder, gentler, jim.

GO FUCK YOURSELF YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE.

Thanks, really, thanks. This new nice jim sure does understand the heart of others. When he feels like it.

that's nice.

So, because I have tried to be more considerate lately, I should go fuck myself if I tell it to you straight?

You were overreacting to imagined slights. now you're having a meltdown. I'm sorry if I set you off. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings when I stated my opinion about this answer. I never said anything to or about you until you began splashing the sarcasm around and calling us ALL jerks.

Go take a deep breath.

and there's no new jim. same guy. different experience. I try to learn from my mistakes. this has gotta be the 11th time you've flown off the fucking handle over nothing. maybe you should try to be the new calmer monkey.

No. No I won't.

I'm sick of it, and I'm done. I'm not your whipping boy, or anyone elses.

No one gives a fuck what I have to say until they see they're getting under my skin, then it becomes a joke to push me til I blow.

And I"m powerless to just walk away. Like I need something from ehre. Like I keep thinking I belong somehow.

You want nice? I sure have tried, but I am NOTHING here, and I don't need it.

Tell me again how I imagine and how I melt down. I hope your psychiatry online degree comes in the mail soon. Hopefully before you kill someone.

Deep breath. Fuck taht.

fucking made me double post and look crazy, you twat... so here's a triple post just so you can be SURE I'm as nutty as you are, squirrel turd!

HAGGIS THESE NVTS!

cmere... gimme a hug, you dirty bitch

Fuck yourself jim.

FUCK YOURSELF. HYPOCRITE.

But before you do please to enumerate all my faults. I'm not sure I know every single last one of them.

Dismissive.

cmon now... before you say something you'll regret....

let me hold you

and I NEVER said i was kinder... or any of that. you people said that.

Oh, I like the new nice jim... which is fine.... whatever... The only REAL difference is that it usually doesn't occur to me to pick on someone. jinx used to point stupid shit out, and wind me up... I had the capacity to flame them unmerciful. I still do. I just don't bother all that much anymore.

Are you smiling? I DO really love you, you know. for serious.

okie dokie... Sorry if I offended somehow. I was trying to explain my opinion which I thought was the same as IM's...
The part that I believe we differ upon is this (from the original)
"A hunter sees a squirrel on the trunk of a tree" (bold mine)
Perhaps the squirrel doesn't stay ON the tree. However, I thought that was the implication. As you were, I'm out.

Does the hunter go around the muzzle of his gun?

yes! and he goes around the end of his nose, and he goes around all of the air between him and the tree, and he goes around the worms in the apples on the ground near the tree, and he goes right round, baby right round.

Irrelevant question.
Is the hunter holding the gun or is the gun stationary or is the squirrel holding it?

It's relevant to me. If you find it irrelevant, why bother mentioning it? I'm imagining a scenario like the illustration that accompanied this nut originally. You can scroll back for reference.

Ok, well then tell me how an inanimate object HELD BY THE HUNTER is
remotely related to a live squirrel intentionally moving opposite the hunter.

Does the hunter circle the squirrel?

Does the hunter circle the tree?

What else, the muzzle of his gun for example, does the hunter circle?

What does it mean for the hunter to circle something?

It is necessary to know the answer to this last question if you're going to be able to answer the first question. I often move from the general to the specific when solving puzzles. This is one such example.

I am disappoint.

We're all drawing the same diagrams. I think we all picture it perfectly. What we disagree on is what it means to go around something. It's all relative. The skwirlell might think it's going around the guy.

Relative to the ground, the guy is going around the sqirelle. See the diagram cm drew and the one footsie drew in the bottom corner..

And the hunter does go around the muzzle of his gun.

Edit: And if I edit infinite Monkey's picture, it's showing how the man is going around the squerl.

It might help if you ignore the tree. The hunter circles the tree, not the squiwwel.

Dear disappoint footfootfoot:

Does the hunter in your diagram circle the tree?

like this?

Okay, now move the hunter closer to the tree-rat, really close.

Yes that is what I was thinking. Again the issue is "Perhaps the squirrel doesn't stay ON the tree. However, I thought that was the implication. "

Why does distance matter? The hunter isn't on the tree.

If someone is at home with you right now then try it.

Stand up facing each other and 'circle' around as if you are wrestlers about to grapple, one in a slightly tighter arc. Is the one on the outside circling the other?

It doesn't, that's what I was trying to say in a rather awkward way!

The squirrel is making a circular path whose center point is the center of the tree. And the hunter is making a circular path with a center point that's the center of the tree. The hunter's circle is larger than the squirrel's circle. The squirrel's circle is entirely inside the hunter's circle. We agree on this, right?

If the squirrel made a circle that was so small, the center point was inside the body of the squirrel, would the hunter be circling the squirrel then? For example, say the squirrel had its paw resting on the top of the tree as it was running around the other side. Is the hunter going around the squirrel then?

What about if the squirrel is standing on the top of the tree and rotating so it was always facing the hunter? Is the hunter going around the squirrel then?

At some point, the hunter has to be going around the squirrel. When is that point?

What if the hunter and the squirrel are always on the same side of the tree - does that change anyone's answer?

I'm with IM on this one.

glatt, my illustration sucks, but in my mind both the man and the squirrel are circling the tree. I guess what I was showing was what it would take for the man to walk around the squirrel.

And I'm sorry for losing it earlier. A lot on my plate, and a trigger word. Jim and I have spoken, but I wanted to say I'm sorry to everyone. :(

"Sorry for ruining your black panther thread" foot.

I like footfootfoot's illustration. I don't agree with his conclusion because I don't agree with his reasoning.

What if the tree in his picture were a lazy susan in the middle of a round table. As the hunter walks around the table, does he walk around the lazy susan? What if the lazy susan is rotating in the same direction and at the same speed as the hunter? What if the lazy susan is stopped?

HLJ, do you believe the hunter has circled the tree?

If I walk around your house when you're home, have I circled your house? Have I circled you? In what way does it matter how you're moving inside your house as I circle it with respect to my circling you?

ps, please don't shoot me, I'm just trying to make a point, not looking for a way into your house.

As Deming would say, we can't agree on an answer without appropriate operational definitions.