Life is a Test: A Series of Pony Logic Puzzles

by Brony_of_Brody

Trixie's Rehearsal Woes

Greetings, loyal readers! It is I, the Great and Powerful Trixie!

What's that? You've never heard of me? Don't you lie, I see you, wasting your time on this website when you could be working! Look at Trixie! Trixie is ALWAYS working!

Ahem.

Anyway, I have been asked to impart a certain tale of woe that could perhaps be used as an invaluable learning experience to lost lambs such as yourselves. No, don't stop to thank Trixie or anything, it was nothing. Well, the disaster was something to Trixie, but unexamined lives and all that.

Well, I had recently come up with an act so great it would surely require a level of technological sophistication not unlike that of the most well-known princess crowning ceremonies. Oh it was marvelous! It would have been a great pyrotechnic marvel of explosions, fire, exploding fire and so many fireworks and illusions that Trixie would be a superstar overnight. And by that I mean MORE of a superstar, because that's what Trixie is already. Yes.

But the last thing I wanted was to have the press shove their cameras and their notebooks into Trixie's business, so I hatched a plan. A scheme of sorts, if you will. I had a crew of thirty ponies all ready, all being very well paid by Canterlot sponsors, and so I decided to split them into three groups to rehearse the act independently.

Now, never let anypony say that Trixie ever lets an act go stale! No sir! So Trixie decided to keep them on everypony's toes, even during practice. I told them that they wouldn't know which teams they would be assigned to, and had them sorted out with certain...instructions.

What's that? Why didn't Trixie just go the simple route for an act as big as this? Because Trixie ALWAYS remains consistent on how stagehands are arranged, and Trixie wasn't about to stop now!

Yes, I realise that it was a terrible idea NOW, thank you. Now may Trixie FINISH her unfortunate comedy of errors? As I was saying...

Each of the thirty ponies would turn up at the Canterlot train station at random times during the day, and they'd get on the first train departing to either Las Pegasus, Manehatten or San Diegoat. Now, Trixie did check the timetables, and it so happened that there were an equal amount of trains bound to each destination, so it stood to reason that Trixie should have a decently even split of teams, each one ready to rehearse their individual parts for Trixie's grand performance.

But alas! Upon returning to Canterlot to coordinate the operation, Trixie discovered that the plan, the beautiful operation, had hit a snag! I had received word that out of the thirty ponies that were part of this glorious undertaking, TWENTY FIVE of them had arrived in Las Pegasus, and only a measly THREE ponies were in Manehatten, while the remaining TWO were in San Diegoat!

Now as you can imagine, Trixie was considerably hacked off by this! Oh there were a lot of angry words exchanged, but each and every pony involved swore on Princess Celestia that they didn't disobey Trixie's instructions. Hmph. Personally Trixie believes that the bright lights and glitz of Las Pegasus were too much of a siren's call for these cretins.

But since I was told that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for it (it was some nerd in glasses who said he worked on 'fanfiction', whatever that is), Trixie wants to hear it from you. Yes, you. Don't tell me you can't explain to Trixie why my glorious act was nearly ruined by a snag that Trixie had not foreseen!

Author's Note:

So that's your puzzle. For those who zoned out of Trixie's rambling, here's the summary:

1. Three destinations: Las Pegasus, Manehatten and San Diegoat.

2. There's an equal amount of trains to each destination.

3. Thirty ponies turn up at random times during the day.

4. Said ponies catch the first train going to one of these destinations.

5. The result is 25 ponies in Las Pegasus, 3 in Manehatten and 2 in San Diegoat.

6. Nopony disobeyed instructions.

PUZZLE: Figure out how this could have happened.

Comments

[Night_Moon60606]

9182135
its because ur only narrowing the search down to a range. if one person (or pony) tries multiple barrels, even if theres overlap, ur still limited to that overlap range, and u only have the time for one test to determine that range. now, i havnt read the answer yet, as of the posting of this reply, but tracking down one barrel out of two thousand and ending up only narrowing the search range to three or four barrels in the time allotted...that doesnt seem right, it doesnt seem like the solution...

[Calliope Pony]

I'm not sure what the puzzle here is? If the ponies are showing up randomly and taking random trains then any result is possible. There's no reason to think that they would be distributed evenly at the end.

[Titanicgaming360]

9181761
nope

[Brony_of_Brody]

9183012
It's not random, each pony is taking the first train going to one of the three destinations.

[Brony_of_Brody]

9181603
Then it's not a puzzle, it's just MLP General Knowledge. A Puzzle is meant to test the reasoning skills.

[Calliope Pony]

9183564
They're each taking the first available train to one of three locations. If they're not given any indication which location to go to and train availability is determined by random arrival times then there's no telling which of the three trains any given pony might end up on.

[Brony_of_Brody]

9183946
Not everything is random in this puzzle. Think about what is fixed in this case.

[Ri2]

Trixie gave terrible instructions and the ponies could barely understand a thing she wrote, so it's her fault but she's too egotistical to admit it.

[Calliope Pony]

For all Trixie knew, all thirty ponies could have shown up within ten minutes of each other and all gotten on the same train to one location.

[Accurate Balance]

My guess:
It is because the trains arrives at times given below:
09:00 - Las Pegasus
09:06 - Manehatten
09:10 - San DIegoat
10:00 - Las Pegasus
10:06 - Manehatten
10:10 - San Diegoat
...

[Andy Ray]

I think, there was a certain chance of a random pony showing up at the train station at a specific time. Yes, they did choose the time to catch a train randomly, but, I fear, the Great and Powerful Trixie did not account for the chances of choosing a certain time being not equal. In other words, ponies tended to choose a certain time in preference to other times, though none of them saw that tendency. If ponies had rolled a die to choose the time to go catch a train, the die would have turned out to be unbalanced, with a very big chance of catching a train to Las-Pegasus. The assumption is, that in the morning all the trains go to L.-P., then come the trains going to Manehattan, and then -- to S.-Diegoat.