The three princes of Serendip Went on a little trip.
They could not carry too much weight;
More than 300 pounds made them hesitate.
They planned to the ounce. When they returned to Ceylon
They discovered that their supplies were just about gone
When, what to their joy, Prince William found
A pile of coconuts on the ground.
“Each will bring 60 rupees,” said Prince Richard with a grin
As he almost tripped over a lion skin.
“Look out!” cried Prince Robert with glee
As he spied some more lion skins under a tree.
“These are worth even more—300 rupees each if we can just carry them all down to the beach.” Each skin weighed fifteen pounds and each coconut, five,
But they carried them all and made it alive.
The boat back to the island was very small 15 cubic feet baggage capacity—that was all.
Each lion skin took up one cubic foot
While eight coconuts the same space took.
With everything stowed they headed to sea
And on the way calculated what their new wealth might be.
“Eureka!” cried Prince Robert, “Our worth is so great
That there’s no other way we could return in this state.
Any other skins or nut that we might have brought would now have us poorer. And now I know what—I’ll write my friend Horace in England, for surely only he can appreciate our serendipity.” Formulate and solve Serendipity by graphical LP in order to calculate “what their new wealth might be.”