The Lily Pad

A lily pad starts out very small, but doubles in size every day. After 60 days it has completely covered a pond. After how many days had it covered one-quarter the area of the pond? Click below for the answer.

The instinctive answer might seem to be 15 days, but that would only be correct if the lily pad was growing linearly. Remember, the lily pad doubles in size every day, which is exponential. To solve this puzzle, just work backwards. If the lily pad completely covers the pond on day 60, then half the pond was covered on day 59, and one-quarter of the pond was covered on day 58.