The Ice Cream Problem In 1978, the Pontiac division of the US automobile giant General Motors received a rather strange letter from a customer. It began: "You may think I'm crazy, but believe me, I'm not. In our family we all love ice cream; every evening, our children choose the flavor they want, and I drive to the store to buy it. But since I bought your new Pontiac, I've noticed something very strange. When I get vanilla ice cream, the car won't start. If I buy chocolate, strawberry, or any other flavor, the car works just fine. I know this sounds absurd, but could something in my Pontiac be reacting to vanilla ice cream?" The customer service department laughed at the letter. However, according to the company's rules, the letter was passed on to the engineering team, which had to send an engineer to check the car, no matter how crazy the situation seemed. The engineer was surprised when he met the owner of the car a polite and educated man who seemed perfectly normal. They decided to conduct an experiment together. They drove to the local store, bought vanilla ice cream, and, as reported, the car wouldn't start! The next day, they repeated the process, this time buying chocolate ice cream. Sure enough, the car started without any problem. Day after day, they tested different ice cream flavors, and each time, the result was the same: the car wouldn't start when they bought vanilla ice cream, but it worked perfectly well with every other flavor. The engineer was a sensible man and did not want to believe that the car was "allergic" to vanilla. So, he began to carefully write down every detail of the process gasoline levels, the time it took to purchase the ice cream, the temperature outside, and the distance traveled. After several rounds of data collection, he finally discovered the pattern. It wasn't the flavor of ice cream that was causing the problem, but rather the speed at which the trip was completed. Vanilla ice cream, being the most popular flavor, was placed in a freezer at the front of the store, allowing the customer to buy it much faster than other flavors, which were kept in the back of the store. As a result, the trip for vanilla ice cream was much shorter than for the other flavors. The engineer then realised what was happening. The short duration of the vanilla trips meant that the car motor didn't have enough time to cool down before being turned on again. The Pontiac had a motor design problem. When the driver returned quickly with vanilla ice cream, the motor was still hot, which didn't let the car start immediately. Thanks to a customer's curious observation about ice cream, General Motors 13 The family of the car owner ate ice cream every day. 1) True 2) False 3) Not stated Ответ: 14 Vanilla was the family's favourite ice cream flavour. 1) True 2) False 3) Not stated 15 16 17 Ответ: The car owner believed there was nothing strange in cars having allergies. 1) True 2) False 3) Not stated Ответ: While working on this problem, the engineer got to eat a lot of ice cream. 1) True 2) False 3) Not stated Ответ: It took the engineer only two days to understand what the problem was. 1) True 2) False 3) Not stated Ответ: 18 19 Buying vanilla ice cream took the car owner less time than buying chocolate ice cream. 1) True 2) False 3) Not stated Ответ: The story with the ice cream helped the automobile company General Motors. 1) True 2) False 3) Not stated Ответ