I remember this puzzle since childhood and think it’s pretty cute. I am apologizing in advance to those folks who already know the solution. You have the God given right to subject me to a public condemnation and cast virtual stones in me. That said… here is the puzzle.

You are a boatman who is given the task to move a wolf, a goat and a cabbage from the left to the right shore.  

  Your small boat can only hold two – you and one of the subjects either the wolf, the goal or the cabbage. The question is how to do this providing that the wolf wouldn’t eat the goat and the goat wouldn’t eat the cabbage? And please don’t figure that the can eat each other in a presence of a boatman. After all, we are talking about a logical puzzle, not a real life situation. 

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The Solution… 

I think it’s obvious that we have to always to keep those pair of subjects on a shore that cannot each other. Therefore we leave the wolf with the cabbage on the left shore and move the goat to the right one.     

Next we put in the boat the wolf or the cabbage. That doesn’t matter. Let’s say the wolf and move it to the right shore.     

  “Wait a second,” you might say, “but if we leave the wolf with the goat on the right shore with the goat then the wolf would eat it on the right shore!” 

Ah, but we wouldn’t. Here is the main trick. We will drop the wolf on the right shore, take the goat to the boat and move it to the left shore again.     

Then it’s simple. You probably already figures it out. We leave the goat on the left shore, take the cabbage in the boat, move it to the right shore and leave it with the wolf.   

  Finally, we go back to the left shore, get the goat in the boat again and move it to the right shore.    

  Voila!