You are given four pieces of chain shown on the left, and you want to make a circular chain shown on the right. What is a minimum number of links you need to cut to do the job?

On 5/18/2023 at 5:29 PM, Genady said:

You are given four pieces of chain shown on the left, and you want to make a circular chain shown on the right. What is a minimum number of links you need to cut to do the job?

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3? Cut each link in one of the segments resulting in three open links an three segments. Use the three open links to join the three segments into a loop.

 

13 minutes ago, Ghideon said:

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3? Cut each link in one of the segments resulting in three open links an three segments. Use the three open links to join the three segments into a loop.

 

This is correct. +1

I don't know a way with fewer cuts.