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This is an ancient puzzle. The oldest known example was found in Propositiones ad Acuendos Juvenes, which dates to the late ninth century.
You are a farmer taking a fox, a chicken and a bag of grain to market and you come across a river. The only way across the river is by a small boat, which can only hold at most you and one of the three items. Left unsupervised, the chicken will eat the grain or the fox will eat the chicken (however, the fox won't try to eat the grain, nor will the fox or the chicken wander off). What's the quickest way to get everything across the river?
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