POTW #7
The second question in the competition!
Bob is obsessed with pencil twirling. Every time he is thinking, he twirls his pencil. The way he twirls it is by spinning the pencil around his thumb. Bob can spin it once, twice in a row, three times in a row, and so on. However, Bob sometimes drops the pencil. It takes Bob 1.5 seconds to spin it once, 3 seconds to spin it twice, 4.5 seconds to spin is thrice, and so on. It takes Bob 6 seconds to pick up the pencil if he drops it.
One day, he is in math class doing a hard math problem. He spins, his pencil twice, drops it, once, drops it, five times, drops it, eight times, drops it, drops it again, twelve times, drops it, writes a large number down (23 seconds), fifty-four times, drops it, once, drops it, fifteen times, drops it, drops it again, drops it again, nine times, drops it, twice, figures out the answer and writes it down (5 seconds), screams "Eureka!" (1.99 seconds), and then drops his pencil. How much time did it take Bob to figure out the math problem. This includes the time he spends twirling his pencil, thinking, screaming, and so on. Basically, include all the actions in that long list above. Give your answer in minutes and seconds. (Note: If I receive any answers with only minutes or only seconds, then it’s minus 2 points, because it must be in minutes and seconds!)
Difficulty level: 3
Source: Original. The idea came to me while I was actually thinking of a good POTW question and twirling my pencil, a real life example.
