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You go to the local farmers market in an alternate universe.

You browse various items and find that:

  • The blueberries cost 4.5₤
  • The gooseberries cost 5.5₤
  • The lemons cost 6₤
  • The satsumas cost 6.5₤
  • The strawberries cost 7₤

How much are the bananas?

Bonus question: How much is a bottle of milk "subjectively"? I mean if we all now want smoothies, we should get that as well right. Is there milk in smoothies? I'm unsure now

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    $\begingroup$ what's a banana? $\endgroup$
    – L_Church
    Mar 12, 2018 at 14:40
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    $\begingroup$ Banana is 15000₤ since in this alternate universe the monkeys rule our world and banana is a precious resource... $\endgroup$
    – Gustavo Gabriel
    Mar 12, 2018 at 15:08
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    $\begingroup$ Outside the box thinking? There are no bananas, since this is a "local" farmers market and bananas wouldn't be growing in the same region as these other fruits? $\endgroup$
    – sirjonsnow
    Mar 12, 2018 at 15:26
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    $\begingroup$ Is nobody else going to point out that in physics, we measure radiation in bananas? $\endgroup$
    – TrojanByAccident
    Mar 12, 2018 at 15:37
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    $\begingroup$ Wait: a single blueberry is 4.5₤? Man, these farmers are crooks... $\endgroup$
    – frarugi87
    Mar 13, 2018 at 10:06

4 Answers 4

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After looking at the answer, I can also add that the numerical price is also loosely based on...

The fruit's colour's wavelength per the electromagnetic spectrum, at 1 pence per nanometre :)

enter image description here

The choice of numbers is not all that arbitrary!

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    $\begingroup$ Haha im sorry, this was actually the answer all along! Didn't read the answer i accepted first very carefully... Props to you! $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Mar 13, 2018 at 8:07
  • $\begingroup$ But the spectrum i looked at were a little bit different, e.g yellow were marked at 600nm etc $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Mar 13, 2018 at 8:12
  • $\begingroup$ Oh sorry and thanks, I was away from Puzzling for a while but I have to say that my answer was inspired by the more upvoted one. If only you could accept both answers? :) $\endgroup$
    – joncoded
    Apr 6, 2018 at 13:48
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I think that the prices are based on:

The fruit colour. Using the rainbow colours ROYGBIV = Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet we get Red (strawberries) = 7, Orange (satsuma) = 6.5, Yellow (lemons) = 6, etc. The blueberries are actually more like deep purple or indigo, which explains the gap in the values, the missing £5. That would be the value of a proper blue fruit. So, assuming that the bananas are yellow, then their price is £6.

A crazy guess on the 'milk' price. I remember this experiment in school - on a circle you have the 7 colours of the rainbow. The circle is then rotated with high speed, visually 'mixing' the colours into something that should be white (never pure white though, because the original colours are not perfect). So the 'milk' colour price should be the average (£5.5) or the sum of the 7 colours (£38.5).

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    $\begingroup$ Unripe bananas are 50c extra? $\endgroup$
    – Rupert Morrish
    Mar 12, 2018 at 18:52
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    $\begingroup$ @RupertMorrish Actually Yellow is 6 and Green 5.50. You should get your maths right first ;) $\endgroup$
    – rhsquared
    Mar 12, 2018 at 19:18
  • $\begingroup$ Ah, the digits were right. Who cares about the sign? (Too late to edit my mistake) $\endgroup$
    – Rupert Morrish
    Mar 12, 2018 at 19:30
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    $\begingroup$ How do units of measurement work into this alternate universe? If the price we calculate applies to a quart of milk, is a gallon 4 times that amount or still the same price? $\endgroup$
    – Kyle Delaney
    Mar 12, 2018 at 19:44
  • $\begingroup$ So the more spoiled the milk is, the closer it gets to the price of a banana... $\endgroup$
    – NL628
    Mar 12, 2018 at 23:16
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One could also base the prices on the Alphabetical orientation of the values, with Bananas coming before Blueberries at 4₤

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    $\begingroup$ Yes, I also has this thought initially but this approach doesn't explain the spacing of the values. $\endgroup$
    – rhsquared
    Mar 12, 2018 at 16:14
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    $\begingroup$ I did the alphabetical ordering as a false lead! Throw ppl of the scent $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Mar 12, 2018 at 21:07
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    $\begingroup$ One might say the herrings cost 7₤ ^^.. $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Mar 13, 2018 at 8:47
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You go to the local farmers market in an alternate universe.

You browse various items and find that:

The bananas cost 4₤ The blueberries cost 4.5₤ The bottle of milk cost 5₤ The gooseberries cost 5.5₤ The lemons cost 6₤ The satsumas cost 6.5₤ The strawberries cost 7₤ Because it's alphabetical, The Bottle Of Milk explains the spacing.

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  • $\begingroup$ I agree with this answer, as much as it would be fun to base prices on colors, this seems to be a better and more logical answer to the question. $\endgroup$
    – NH.
    Mar 13, 2018 at 16:42

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