Here's a big pile of puzzles that I enjoyed from 1993. I haven't sorted this list... some may be repeated, some might not have their answers listed, but they're all ones that I really enjoyed looking at way back when!





From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "CHINCHILLA CHINCHILLA"  9-MAY-1993 From: tolman@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman)
Subject: My woord!
Date: 8 May 93 14:18:45 MDT
 
Until you find this word, it will be trapped within these eight or so
clues.  Rotting here, the search will drag on and drag on. Never
found, it will be an outcast left here, along with three hidden words
which hint to its nature. Eggs will be tortured with jealousy. And a
dog with a feeling of dissatisfaction and weariness got mixed up and
lost his identity.  Rufus was his name, he made an excrement that
lasted for ages and ages. Odd clues again, I suppose, for this seven
letter word.
 
 
(I tried to figure out "mi word" with some pals, but we couldn't get
it, maybe post some hints.) 
 
-- 


From: lsonko@pearl.tufts.edu (CHINCHILLA CHINCHILLA)
Subject: here's some original alphabet puzzles
 
the past alphabet puzzles were fun so I thought some new ones would be good.
Here are some originals from me.. answers posted in a week (if you don't get
them by then)  again, these use "standard" written letters. It might help if
you wrote out the letters on a piece of paper. However they are all
getable using computer type if you discount serifs (curls on ends of letters)
except #2 which must be written out by hand.
enjoy!
lee
 
#1
BDELWZ
ACFGHIJKMNOPQRSTUVXY
 
#2
BDEFHIKLMNPRT
ACGJOQSUVWXYZ
 
#3
BMPW
ACDEFGHIJKLNOQRSTUVXYZ
 
#4
AEHKLMNQRWXZ
BCDFGIJOPSTUVY
 
#5
AKEIBDJMHFCLG
SQOWNTRYPXVUZ
 
#6
CFILORUX
ABDEGHJKMNPQSTVWYZ
 
#7
ABCDEGIPTVYZ
FHJKLMNOQRSUWX
 
#8
ADFGHJKLS
BCEIMNOPQRTUVWXYZ
 
#9
QZ
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPRSTUVWXY
 
 


From: clong@remus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems,rec.arts.books,rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: third word ending with GRY
Message-ID: <May.8.08.07.28.1993.4663@remus.rutgers.edu>
Date: 8 May 93 12:07:28 GMT
 
In article <1993May4.164948.1@aurora.alaska.edu>,
  fncll@aurora.alaska.edu writes:
 
> ok.. so what IS the third word in the English language that end with GRY
> besides Angry and Hungry...
 
If you allow obsolete and proper words, there are nearly 100 known.
I found a new one recently while looking over a map to locate my new
dentist; there's apparently a Pingry School in Mt. Hoeb, New Jersey.
 
From the rec.puzzles archive:
 
==> english/gry.p <==
Find three completely different words ending in "gry."
 
==> english/gry.s <==
Aside from "angry" and "hungry" and words derived therefrom, there is
only one word ending with "-gry" in Webster's Third Unabridged: "aggry."
However, this word is defective in that it is part of a phrase "aggry beads."
The OED's usage examples all talk about "aggry beads."
 
Moving to older dictionaries, we find that "gry" itself is a word in Webster's
Second Unabridged (and the OED):
 
gry, n. [L. gry, a trifle; Gr. gry, a grunt]
   1. a measure equal to one-tenth of a line. [Obs.] (Obs. = obsolete)
   2. anything very small. [Rare.]
 
This is a list of 94 words, phrases and names ending in "gry":
[Explanation of references is given at the end of the list.]
 
aggry [OED:1:182; W2; W3]
Agry Dagh (Mount Agry) [EB11]
ahungry [OED:1:194; FW; W2]
angry [OED; FW; W2; W3]
anhungry [OED:1:332; W2]
Badagry [Johnston; EB11]
Ballingry [Bartholomew:40; CLG:151; RD:164, pl.49]
begry [OED:1:770,767]
bewgry [OED:1:1160]
bowgry [OED:1:1160]
braggry [OED:1:1047]
Bugry [TIG]
Chockpugry [Worcester]
Cogry [BBC]
cony-gry [OED:2:956]
conyngry [OED:2:956]
Croftangry [DFC, as "Chrystal Croftangry"]
dog-hungry [W2]
Dshagry [Stieler]
Dzagry [Andree]
eard-hungry [CED (see "yird"); CSD]
Echanuggry [Century:103-104, on inset map, Key 104 M 2]
Egry [France; TIG]
ever-angry [W2]
fire-angry [W2]
Gagry [EB11]
gry (from Latin _gry_) [OED:4/2:475; W2]
gry (from Romany _grai_) [W2]
haegry [EDD (see "hagery")]
half-angry [W2]
hangry [OED:1:329]
heart-angry [W2]
heart-hungry [W2]
higry pigry [OED:5/1:285]
hogry [EDD (see "huggerie"); CSD]
hogrymogry [EDD (see "huggerie"); CSD (as "hogry-mogry")]
hongry [OED:5/1:459; EDD:3:282]
huggrymuggry [EDD (see "huggerie"); CSD (as "huggry-muggry")]
hungry [OED; FW; W2; W3]
Hungry Bungry [Daily Illini, in ad for The Giraffe, Spring 1976]
Jagry [EB11]
kaingry [EDD (see "caingy")]
land-hungry [W2]
Langry [TIG; Times]
Lisnagry [Bartholomew:489]
MacLoingry [Phillips (as "Flaithbhertach MacLoingry")]
mad-angry [OED:6/2:14]
mad-hungry [OED:6/2:14]
magry [OED:6/2:36, 6/2:247-48]
malgry [OED:6/2:247]
Margry [Indians (see "Pierre Margry" in bibliog., v.2, p.1204)]
maugry [OED:6/2:247-48]
mawgry [OED:6/2:247]
meagry [OED:6/2:267]
meat-hungry [W2]
menagry [OED (see "managery")]
messagry [OED]
overangry [RH1; RH2]
Pelegry [CE (in main index as "Raymond de Pelegry")]
Pingry [Bio-Base; HPS:293-94, 120-21]
podagry [OED; W2 (below the line)]
Pongry [Andree (Supplement, p.572)]
pottingry [OED:7/2:1195; Jamieson:3:532]
puggry [OED:8/1:1573; FW; W2; W3]
pugry [OED:8/1:1574]
rungry [EDD:5:188]
scavengry [OED (in 1715 quote under "scavengery")]
Schtschigry [LG/1:2045; OSN:97]
Seagry [TIG; EB11]
Segry [Johnston; Andree]
self-angry [W2]
self-hungry ?
Shchigry [CLG:1747; Johnson:594; OSN:97,206; Times:185,pl.45]
shiggry [EDD]
Shtchigry [LG/1:2045; LG/2:1701]
Shtshigry [Lipp]
skugry [OED:9/2:156, 9/1:297; Jamieson:4:266]
Sygry [Andree]
Tangry [France]
Tchangry [Johnson:594; LG/1:435,1117]
Tchigry [Johnson:594]
tear-angry [W2]
tike-hungry [CSD]
Tingry [France; EB11 (under "Princesse de Tingry")]
toggry [Simmonds (as "Toggry", but all entries are capitalized)]
ulgry [Partridge; Smith:24-25]
unangry [W2]
vergry [OED:12/1:123]
Virgy [CLG:2090]
Wirgy [CLG:2090; NAP:xxxix; Times:220, pl.62; WA:948]
wind-angry.
wind-hungry [W2]
yeard-hungry [CED (see "yird")]
yerd-hungry [CED (see "yird"); OED]
yird-hungry [CED (see "yird")]
Ymagry [OED:1:1009 (col. 3, 1st "boss" verb), (variant of "imagery")]
 
This list was gathered from the following articles:
 
George H. Scheetz. In Goodly Gree: With Goodwill. Word Ways 22:195 (Nov. 1989)
Murray R. Pearce. Who's Flaithbhertach MacLoingry? Word Ways 23:6 (Feb. 1990)
Harry B. Partridge. Gypsy Hobby Gry. Word Ways 23:9 (Feb. 1990)
 
References:
(Many references are of the form [Source:volume:page] or [Source:page].)
 
Andree, Richard. Andrees Handatlas (index volume). 1925.
Bartholomew, John. Gazetteer of the British Isles: Statistical and
	Topographical. 1887.
BBC = BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of English Names.
Bio-Base. (Microfiche) Detroit: Gale Research Company. 1980.
CE = Catholic Encyclopedia. 1907.
CED = Chambers English Dictionary. 1988.
Century = "India, Northern Part." The Century Atlas of the World. 1897, 1898.
CLG = The Colombia Lippincott Gazetteer of the World. L.E.Seltzer, ed. 1952.
CSD = Chambers Scots Dictionary. 1971 reprint of 1911 edition.
Daily Illini (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).
DFC = Dictionary of Fictional Characters. 1963.
EB11 = Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed.
EDD = The English Dialect Dictionary. Joseph Wright, ed. 1898.
France = Map Index of France. G.H.Q. American Expeditionary Forces. 1918.
FW = Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary of the English Language. 1943.
HPS = The Handbook of Private Schools: An Annual Descriptive Survey of
	Independent Education, 66th ed. 1985.
Indians = Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. F. W. Hodge. 1912.
Jamieson, John. An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language. 1879-87.
Johnston, Keith. Index Geographicus... 1864.
LG/1 = Lippincott's Gazetteer of the World: A Complete Pronouncing Gazetteer
	or Geographical Dictionary of the World. 1888.
LG/2 = Lippincott's New Gazetteer: ... 1906.
Lipp = Lippincott's Pronouncing Gazetteer of the World. 1861, undated
	edition from late 1800's; 1902.
NAP = Narodowy Atlas Polski. 1973-1978 [Polish language]
OED = The Oxford English Dictionary. 1933. [Form: OED:volume/part number if
	applicable:page]
OSN: U.S.S.R. Volume 6, S-T. Official Standard Names Approved by the United
	States Board on Geographic Names. Gazetteer #42, 2nd ed. June 1970.
Partridge, Harry B. "Ad Memoriam Demetrii." Word Ways, 19 (Aug. 1986): 131.
Phillips, Lawrence. Dictionary of Biographical Reference. 1889.
RD = The Reader's Digest Complete Atlas of the British Isles, 1st ed. 1965.
RH1 = Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged. 1966.
RH2 = Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition
	Unabridged. 1987.
Simmonds, P.L. Commercial Dictionary of Trade Products. 1883.
Smith, John. The True Travels, Adventvres and Observations: London 1630.
Stieler, Adolph. Stieler's Handatlas (index volume). 1925.
TIG = The Times Index-Gazetteer of the World. 1965.
Times = The Times Atlas of the World, 7th ed. 1985.
W2 = Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language,
	Second Edition, Unabridged. 1934.
W3 = Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language,
	Unabridged. 1961.
WA = The World Atlas: Index-Gazetteer. Council of Ministires of the USSR, 1968.
Worcester, J.E. Universal Gazetteer, Second Edition. 1823.
 
Some words containing "gry" that do not end with "gry": agrypnia,
agrypnotic, Gryllidae, gryllid, gryllus, Gryllus, grylloblattid, 
Gryllotalpa, gryllos, grypanian, Gryphaea, Gryll, Gryphaea, gryposis,
grysbok, gryphon, Gryphosaurus, Grypotherium, grysbuck.  Most of these 
are in Webster's Second also with one from Webster's Third Edition and
one from the Random House Dictionary, Second Edition Unabridged.
-- 
Chris Long, 265 Old York Rd., Bridgewater, NJ 08807-2618
 
Score: 0, Diff: 1, clong killed by a Harvard Math Team on  1


From: kanbidv@vax.sbu.ac.uk
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: DIY
Message-ID: <1993Jun1.161757.2442@vax.sbu.ac.uk>
Date: 1 Jun 93 16:17:57 GMT
 
Yo people......
 
   I have a simple puzzle for all you clever people around the world.
(Nothing new there is it??). You might think it is puzzle or a joke.
 
 
here it is.
 
  In a DIY shop there is an item which I'm going to tell you the price, all you
have to do is tell me what the item is.
 
 the prices are.
 
  1 cost 25p
  -
  99 costs 50p
  --
  150 costs 75p
  ---
 
  what is this thing.
 
  if you have the answer to this question then mail me and i will reply to say 
if you are right or wrong. If you are wrong then you must be an idiot so 
I will mail you the answer. If you get it right then you must be a clever sod.


From: kanbidv@vax.sbu.ac.uk
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Intercity 125.
Message-ID: <1993Jun1.192548.2447@vax.sbu.ac.uk>
Date: 1 Jun 93 19:25:48 GMT
 
  hello world.
 
 
  I have problem for you. If you can solve it then its no big deal cos its
easy peasy teasy. If you cant then you must be the greates wally on this
galaxy.
 
  the problem is.
 
 
  A train leaves from Newcastle for London at 10 am and at the same time a 
train leaves from London for Newcastle. The train from Newcastle travels at the
speed of 120 mph and the Train from London at 90 mph. The train meet at a point
which I don't give a damn, but what i want to know is at the point they meet
which one will be nearer to Newcastle.
 
 
  All answers to the address above.
 


From: logos@random.esd.sgi.com (Jedediah Elysdir Hartman)
Subject: Unsilent letters
Message-ID: <i9bo09o@zola.esd.sgi.com>
Sender: news@zola.esd.sgi.com (Net News)
Organization: MicroSysTechInterObSoftCompuGenDyneCoTeleCorp, Inc.
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 93 00:34:09 GMT
 
I seem to say something dumb -- or else get no reply -- nearly every time I
try to post here on any topic other than situation puzzles, but I'm going to
try again anyway.  (If this has recently been discussed here and I've
managed to miss it -- not altogether unlikely -- then just ignore me and
I'll go away.)  A friend of mine suggested this the other night: find a word
which contains one or more silent letters, in which the silent letters stop
being silent if you add letters to produce another form of the same word.
 
Confused?  Here are some examples of what we want:
autumn --> autumnal
column --> columnar
damn --> damnation
hymn --> hymnal
malign --> malignant
resign --> resignation
 
Note that the silent letter(s) can be anywhere in the word; we just haven't
found any that work with silent letters anywhere except in the last two
positions in the word.  And the letters can be added elsewhere, too;
suffixes (suffices?) simply seemed simplest.  Also note that
 
design(ation)
repugn(ant)
sign(atory)
 
and the like are interesting but don't quite fit the desired format; we're
looking for a different part of speech for the same word, not just related
words.  Similarly,
 
lamb(ast)
bomb(astic)
tomb(oy)
 
are interesting (and I'd be interested in seeing such) but again not quite
in keeping with the original question.
 
(Aside: this also brought up the question of what counts as a silent letter.
Is the 'k' in 'jack' silent?  How about the second 's' in 'class'?  Probably
most people would say not, but it's arguable that those letters are not
really pronounced...)
 
(Oh, and '(jack)knife' and 'dumb(bell)' are clearly not examples of what
we're looking for, since it's not the silent letter that gets pronounced in
those cases but another letter next to it.)
 
--jed
--
Jed Hartman              | "The stories that last have characters that are as
logos@random.esd.sgi.com |  real as your uncle. It's this whatever it is that
-------------------------+  separates the sheep from the goats in fantasy."
                                                           --Robert A. Hedeen  


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "CHINCHILLA CHINCHILLA- DR CALIGARI"  2-JUN-1993 01:09:58.48
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	stable puzz

Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Path: news.tufts.edu!noc.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!darwin.sura.net!udel!news.intercon.com!psinntp!iat.holonet.net!whizzie
From: whizzie@orac.holonet.net (Nancy Klee)
Subject: Re: Tough riddle...
Message-ID: <C7z42u.ID@iat.holonet.net>
Sender: usenet@iat.holonet.net (USENET News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: orac.holonet.net
Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access System: 510-704-1058/modem
References: <1993May25.223022.24116@csus.edu>
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 02:54:26 GMT
Lines: 26
 
chi@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu writes:
 
>Here's a riddle I heard from a friend. He still hasn't found the
>answer to the riddle yet.
 
>	As a whole, I am both safe and secure.
>	Behead me, and I become a place of meeting.
>	Behead me again, and I am the partner of ready.
>	Restore me, and I become the domain of beasts.
 
>	What am I?
 
>I don't know the answer so I'm hoping someone does know it.
 
 
       -- The answer, of course, is      STABLE
 
       STABLE =  safe and secure
       Behead it and it becomes TABLE, a place of meeting
       Behead it again and it becomes ABLE, ready's partner in the
                                     phrase, "ready and able"
       Restored, it's STABLE again, a domain of beasts
 
 
                                          -- Whizzie
 


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "CHINCHILLA CHINCHILLA- DR CALIGARI" 22-JUN-1993 14:56:02.56
To:	LSONKO
CC:	LSONKO
Subj:	weighing puzz

In article <1993Jun21.155232.24178@hellgate.utah.edu> jaynes%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Chris Jaynes) writes:
>	We have a set of eight balls.  One of the eight balls
>	has a different weight than the other seven.  We have
>	a _balance_ scale to make measurements and we are only 
>	allowed to make three measurements on the set.  How
>	do we determine which of the eight balls weighs differently
>	and if that ball weighs more than the other seven or less.
 
This question is in the rec.puzzles Archive:
********
logic/weighing/balance.p
********
You are given N balls and a balance scale and told that
one ball is slightly heavier or lighter than the other identical
ones.  The scale lets you put the same number of balls on each side
and observe which side (if either) is heavier.
 
1.     What's the minimum # of weighings X (and way of doing them)
that will always find the unique ball and whether it's heavy or light?
 
2.     If you are told the unique ball is, in fact, heavier than the
others, what's the minimum # of weighings Y to find it?
 
 
********
logic/weighing/balance.s
********
Martin Gardner gave a neat solution to this problem.
 
Assume that you are allowed N weighings.  Write down the 3^N possible
length N strings of the symbols '0', '1', and '2'.  Eliminate the three
such strings that consist of only one symbol repeated N times.
 
For each string, find the first symbol that is different from the symbol
preceeding it.  Consider that pair of symbols.  If that pair is not 01,
12, or 20, cross out that string.  In other words, we only allow strings
of the forms 0*01.*, 1*12.*, or 2*20.* ( using ed(1) regular expressions ).
 
You will have (3^N-3)/2 strings left.  This is how many balls you can
handle in N weighings.
 
Perform N weighings as follows:
 
	For weighing I, take all the balls that have a 0 in string
	position I, and weigh them against all the balls that have
	a 2 in string position I. 
 
	If the side with the 0's in position I goes down, write down
	a 0.  If the other side goes down, write down a 2.  Otherwise,
	write down a 1.
 
After the N weighings, you have written down an N symbol string.  If
your string matches the string on one of the balls, then that is the
odd ball, and it is heavy.  If none of them match, than change every
2 to a 0 in your string, and every 0 to a 2.  You will then have a
string that matches one of the balls, and that ball is lighter than
the others.
 
Note that if you only have to identify the odd ball, but don't have to
determine if it is heavy or light, you can handle (3^N-3)/2+1 balls.
Label the extra ball with a string of all 1's, and use the above
method.
 
Note also that you can handle (3^N-3)/2+1 balls if you *do* have to
determine whether it is heavy or light, provided you have a single reference
ball available, which you know has the correct weight. You do this by
labelling the extra ball with a string of all 2s. This results in it being
placed on the same side of the scales each time, and in that side of the
scales having one more ball than the other each time. So you put the
reference ball on the other side of the scales to the "all 2s" ball on each
weighing.
 
Proving that this works is straightforward, once you notice that the
method of string construction makes sure that in each position, 1/3
of the strings have 0, 1/3 have 1, and 1/3 have 2, and that if a
string occurs, then the string obtained by replacing each 0 with a
2 and each 2 with a 0 does not occur.
******************************
 
To request a copy of the index to the Archive, send a letter to
archive-request@questrel.com
containing the line:
send index
 
The index will be mailed via return email to the address in your
request's "From:" line.  If you are unsure of this address, and cannot
edit this line, then include in your message BEFORE the first "send" line
the line:
 
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The Archive has been posted to news.answers.  News.answers is archived
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in the anonymous ftp directory /pub/usenet/news.answers, and are
archived by "Archive-name".  Other subdirectories of /pub/usenet
contain periodic postings that may not appear in news.answers.
 
Other news.answers archives are:
 
	ftp.cs.ruu.nl [131.211.80.17] in the anonymous ftp
		directory /pub/NEWS.ANSWERS (also accessible via mail
		server requests to mail-server@cs.ruu.nl)
	cnam.cnam.fr [192.33.159.6] in the anonymous ftp directory /pub/FAQ
	ftp.uu.net [137.39.1.9 or 192.48.96.9] in the anonymous ftp
		directory /usenet
	ftp.win.tue.nl [131.155.70.100] in the anonymous ftp directory
		/pub/usenet/news.answers
	grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr [134.214.100.25] in the anonymous ftp
		directory /pub/faq (also accessible via mail server
		requests to listserv@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr), which is
		best used by EASInet sites and sites in France that do
		not have better connectivity to cnam.cnam.fr (e.g.
		Lyon, Grenoble)
 
Note that the periodic posting archives on rtfm.mit.edu are also
accessible via Prospero and WAIS (the database name is "usenet" on port
210).
 


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "GADLING CHIMERAN, MAYBE" 27-JUN-1993 21:22:17.70
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	ampuzz

Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Path: news.tufts.edu!noc.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uwm.edu!caen!malgudi.oar.net!hyperion.wright.edu!drjones
From: drjones@discover.wright.edu (Dean. R. Jones)
Subject: am*U*ous MP, Vol 3
Message-ID: <C97FMo.Mnq@hyperion.wright.edu>
Summary: AMP Vol 3 is ftp'able
Keywords: word puzzles
Sender: news@hyperion.wright.edu (USENET News System)
Nntp-Posting-Host: discgate
Organization: Wright State University
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1993 01:18:24 GMT
Lines: 57
 
 
 
                 Announcing am*U*ous Mind Puzzles, Volume 3
 
 
The Third edition of am*U*ous Mind Puzzles, the collection of word puzzles
like amUous filling a single 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper, is now available via
anonymous ftp from
 
    eve.wright.edu (130.108.128.17)
 
in the files
 
    mindpz03.ps
    mindpz03.gif  
 
which are the postscript and gif versions, respectively. 
 
 
FTP INSTRUCTIONS
 
You will NOT be able to view the files at this site.  Changing directories is
not necessary nor effective.  Simply switch to binary mode, if you need to,
and get the file(s) you desire.  Anonymous ftp'ing at this site is permitted
only during non-business hours, after 5pm before 6am EST.
 
Volumes One and Two are still available at this site.
 
 
ANSWERS
 
If you would like an evaluation of your progress, send a list of your efforts
to mcmeans@dtedi.wpafb.af.mil with the subject "MIND PUZZLES Vol <x> answers",
where x is the volume number.
 
 
CONTRIBUTIONS
 
Comments, questions, suggestions, and puzzle contributions are always welcome.
The best contributions will be included in future editions.  Send them to the
above address.  We encourage everyone to send in their puzzle ideas.  The more
diverse our puzzles are, the more challenging each edition will be.  We also
are eager to receive any phrases you think might make good puzzles.  These
are just as helpful as puzzles themselves.  So go ahead, send us your phrases.
 
 
THANKS
 
We extend special thanks to Cynthia Shroyer for her contributions included in
this issue.
 
 
Sincerely,
 
	am*U*ous
	Mind Puzzles
 


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "THE MAN WITH ONE BRAIN" 20-AUG-1993 13:08:26.07
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	a pyramid word puzzle

Path: news.tufts.edu!noc.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!newsserver.jvnc.net!igor.rutgers.edu!remus.rutgers.edu!clong
From: clong@remus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: A Left Pyrimidal Windmill (SPOILER)
Message-ID: <Aug.19.12.44.31.1993.26130@remus.rutgers.edu>
Date: 19 Aug 93 16:44:31 GMT
References: <Aug.19.01.36.00.1993.12077@remus.rutgers.edu>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 17
 
 
     t
    jee
   joule
  siccant
 zonuridae
buckminsterfullerenes
           broadaxes
            orbited
             aotes
              red
               d
-- 
Chris Long, 265 Old York Rd., Bridgewater, NJ  08807-2618
 
"The proofs are so obvious that they can be left to the reader."
Lars V. Ahlfors, _Complex Analysis_


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "THE MAN WITH ONE BRAIN" 20-AUG-1993 13:14:15.59
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	2 and 2

Path: news.tufts.edu!noc.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uwm.edu!linac!unixhub!slacvm!shere
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Date: Thursday, 19 Aug 1993 16:01:17 PST
From: <SHERE@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU>
Message-ID: <93231.160118SHERE@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU>
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Six Twos
Lines: 11
 
If 2 and 2 and 2 and 2 and 2 and 2 make 8,
  without division or subtraction, how can this equate?
All other functions you may use; but other numbers, none.
  And as for those six twos you have, you must use every one.
(Extra credit for the answer in verse.)
+---------------------------------------------------------+-------------+
| sig under construction                                  | My opinions |
|                                                         | are exactly |
| ->Two wrongs do not make a right, but three lefts do.<- | that, MINE! |
|                                 shere@SLAC.STANFORD.EDU | MINE ALONE! |
+---------------------------------------------------------+-------------+


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "THE MAN WITH ONE BRAIN" 23-AUG-1993 15:15:00.00
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	string puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!noc.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!not-for-mail
From: pkd@delcam.co.uk (Paul Davies)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: A new puzzle?
Date: 23 Aug 1993 09:06:42 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Lines: 32
Sender: daemon@cs.utexas.edu
Message-ID: <8488.9308231350@duct2.delcam.co.uk>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu
 
 
 
I think I have a new geometrical puzzle here.
I tried to find it in the archive, but the archive is VERY big, and I may 
have missed it.
 
At school we occasionally got these Math competitions, which were national
and sometimes international, for instance I remember one such test
had a question: N football stadiums each want to notify the others of
the score at half time. What is the mininum number of phone calls between
two people that can accomplish this? - This question definately _is_ in the
archive. However, I also remember a question from a different competition which
I have asked a number of people, without success:
 
  Two people play a game. Person A lays down a piece of string, which is 
exactly one meter long. He can lay it in any configuration he desires (as 
long as it stays in one piece). For example in a circle, a square, part of a 
sine wave or a figure of eight.
  Person B has a piece of card of some fixed shape with which he must
try to completely cover the line. The original puzzle does not say whether or
not he is allowed to turn the card over, but he can certainly rotate it and
move it to any position.
 
Puzzle 1: What shape must Bs card be, to guarantee a win, no matter
what A does.
 
Easy: a circle with a diameter of one meter would do.
 
Puzzle 2: Of all possible solutions to puzzle 1, what is the shape
of the one with the minimum area?
 
Paul Davies (.sig under construction)


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "THE MAN WITH ONE BRAIN" 26-AUG-1993 15:44:18.60
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	puzz hiker

Xref: news.tufts.edu sci.physics:35297 rec.puzzles:9737
Newsgroups: sci.physics,rec.puzzles
Path: news.tufts.edu!noc.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!darwin.sura.net!martha.utcc.utk.edu!utkvx.utk.edu!dellwo
From: dellwo@utkvx.utk.edu (This Side Up)
Subject: Hiker puzzle (spoiler)
Message-ID: <25AUG199311502382@utkvx.utk.edu>
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Keywords:  average,speed,puzzle
Sender: usenet@martha.utcc.utk.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: University of Tennessee Computing Center
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1993 15:50:00 GMT
Lines: 31
 
 
I'm sure most of you have heard this one before. It's an oldy but was
recently in the Ask Marilyn column of Parade Magazine.
I have a question about the answer so I'm going to include it here.
 
A hiker is walking a 2 mile trail. She does the first mile at a speed
of 1 mph (mile per hour).  How fast must she hike the second mile so
that her average speed will be 2 mph.
 
 
Spoiler!


 
The answer is:  She can't!
 
She would need to hike the trail in 1 hour but it already took an hour
for the first mile.
 
 
The answer many people will give is 3 mph for the second mile.
My question is, is this answer really wrong?  I understand that
in physics we traditionally use the time average (ie. total distance/
total time) for the average speed. But couldn't the answer be the
average over distance as well which would give 3mph. I think *technically*
this is correct.
 
I realize I'm being pedantic but not all Marilyn's readers have had
Physics 101 and I don't want to repeat a puzzle for which the wrong
answer is arguably right.
 
Joe Dellwo


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "THE MAN WITH ONE BRAIN" 26-AUG-1993 15:46:35.66
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	puzz cups

Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Path: news.tufts.edu!noc.near.net!inmet!news.bu.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!news.cso.uiuc.edu!orion!sbrown
From: sbrown@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Scott Brown)
Subject: Re: marbles and cups (spoiler)
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 15:59:33 GMT
Message-ID: <sbrown.746380773@orion>
References: <CCDGpx.5Fx@vcd.hp.com>
Sender: usenet@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Net Noise owner)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Lines: 34
 
dboll@vcd.hp.com (david boll) writes:
 
 
>  Here's an oldie but goodie from Martin Gardner. The answer can
>  be found in 'Mathematical Puzzles', his 1st Sci. Am. book (so
>  no need to post it! <- whaddya want to bet this doesn't work? :) )
 
>  You have 20 marbles and 3 cups.
 
>  Place the 20 marbles in the 3 cups so that each cup has an odd
>  number of marbles in it.
 
     schematic, with number of marbles indicated as a number in 
   parentheses:
 


 
   The solution is to nest one cup inside another:
 
        \           /
         \         /
          \       /
        \  \ (1) /  /      \           /    Here we have two cups
         \  -----  /        \         /     containing one marble,
          \       /          \       /      and one containing
           \ (18)/            \ (1) /       nineteen!
            -----              -----
 
 
   Scott
-- 
   
   "What is the sound-" "SLAP!"  "Ouch!"
 


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "LEE SONKO"  2-SEP-1993 16:39:31.25
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	puzz: pole n ropes

Path: news.tufts.edu!noc.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!uunet!munnari.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!cairo!rafy
From: rafy@cairo.anu.edu.au (Rafy Marootians)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Quick *SIMPLE* puzzle (meant to trick u)
Date: 1 Sep 93 14:13:09 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
Lines: 19
Message-ID: <rafy.746892789@cairo>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.76.16
Keywords: flagpole
 
How about this one:
From Merlin's Puzzler 3 (I missed out on 1 and 2! :-(
 
"In the back of the Crystal Palace stand two flag poles, each 100 feet high,
with a 150-foot piece of rope hanging between them.  The middle of the rope
is 25 feet above the ground [and the ends are attatched to the tops of
each pole].  How far apart are the poles?"
 
Rafy Marootians
 
[-] Logic is a systematic method for getting the wrong conclusion... [v][^]
|  +=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+  The ACKermann Funtion : Try A(4,4)  |
|! |It's the homing Rafy Marootians|  for a good time! (about 2^2^65536) A|
|t |>    rafy@cairo.anu.edu.au    <|  A(0,n) = n+1             n>=0      l|
|u +-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+  A(m,0) = A(m-1,1)        m>0       w|
|o F U CN RD THS U MST B A DOS USR 2  A(m,n) = A(m-1,A(m,n-1)) m>0 & n>0 a|
| neeb evah yam taht sdrow dna srorre gnileeps rof liam ruoy daer foorp sy|
 
 


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "LEE SONKO" 13-SEP-1993 22:47:15.18
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	riddles

Path: news.tufts.edu!noc.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!usenet.coe.montana.edu!netnews.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!stein1.u.washington.edu!scythe
From: scythe@stein1.u.washington.edu (The Grim Reaper)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: Re: More riddles
Date: 13 Sep 1993 21:59:23 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 96
Message-ID: <272qfr$etv@news.u.washington.edu>
References: <1993Sep13.032851.113389@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu
 
In article <1993Sep13.032851.113389@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu>,
STEFAN M. THIEME <smt0@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> wrote:
>Here are some more riddles I've picked up over the years.
>They may not be as hard (?) as the "how fast..." one posted recently, but may
>be more useful...
>
>Riddle #1
>
>Above all things
>have I been placed
>thus have I
>a man disgraced.
>I describe
>sunlight or lock
>but after all
>I'm just a rock.
Some sort of mineral or gem, maybe?  Or a star?
 
>Riddle #2
>
>I cost no money to use.
>Or conscious effort to take part of.
>And as far as you can see,
>there is nothing to me.
>But without me, you are
>dead.
Life?
 
>Riddle #3
>
>Sturdy, strong stable, still
>Some live in me some live on
>And some find me to live upon.
>I rarely leave my native land.
>Until my death I always stand.
>
>Sturdy Strong Stable Still
>Often shaken, but not at will.
>High and low I may be found
>both above and under ground.
Dirt?
 
>Riddle #4
>
>At the sound of me I can make women weep.
>At the sound of me men may clap or stamp their feet.
>What am I?
Someone said music.  That sounds reasonable.  Or how about speech?
 
>Riddle #5
>(more of a regular brain-teaser)
>
>Old King Ghorn had forged his kingdom from the war-wracked lands of Arndor
>not by the strength of his sword but by the sharpness of mind. It was his
>cleverness that tricked the goblins into leaving; it was trickiness that made
>the dragon wing to better hunting grounds; it was his wisdom that kept the
>barons from feuding amongst themselves and the horsemen from attacking. Peace
>had reigned in Ghornia for 35 years, and the king's sword became rusty as he
>raised his family. Alas, the old king was on his deathbed before he could sire
>any sons; his only heir was his daughter Triella. Now Good King Ghorn knew that
>for peace to continue in Ghornia the next king would have to be as clever, and
>so he devised the following test for his daughter's suitors. He who could pass
>it would become king; all others would die.
>
>The test was thus:
>    The princess was put in the center of a huge 50 foot by 50 foot carpet.
>    Whomsoever could touch her hand would get the princess, and the throne
>    besides. However, the rules of the test were that the contestants could not
>    walk over the carpet, cross the plane of the carpet, or hang from
>    anything; nor could they use anything but their body and wits (i.e. no
>    magic or psionics, nor any items such as ladders, block and tackles etc).
>    Furthermore, only normal humans could be applicants (i.e. no deformed guys
>    with 50 foot arms, or shapechangers).
>
>Ghornia now stands; it has a king whose wisdom is unsurpassed. How did the
>king touch Triella's hand?
The king stood on the edge of the carpet, and said "Triella, come here."
When she did, he touched her hand.
 
>
>bye.
>-- 
>
>**The Avatar*** These are my opinions. Mine mine mine mine! ***SMT0@Lehigh.EDU**
>*** For Hire: One Trans-dimensional hero. References available at Britannia ****
>**Skara Brae, Middlegate, Purgatory, Caernavon Station, Quendor and elsewhere **
>***********Reasonable rates, will work anywhere.  Call anytime******************
 
+----------------------------------------------------------+
| One .sig to rule them all, one .sig to find them...      | 
| One .sig to bring them all and in the darkness bind them |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
| The Grim Reaper (Reaper of Souls, Stealer of .sigs)      |
| scythe@u.washington.edu                                  |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
 


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "LEE SONKO" 13-SEP-1993 22:50:05.56
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	stuck princes puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!noc.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!newsserver.jvnc.net!netnews.upenn.edu!netnews.cc.lehigh.edu!ns1.cc.lehigh.edu!smt0
From: smt0@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (STEFAN M. THIEME)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: Re: More riddles
Message-ID: <1993Sep13.202919.104662@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu>
Date: 13 Sep 93 20:29:19 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University
Lines: 54
 
In article <1993Sep13.032851.113389@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu>, smt0@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (
STEFAN M. THIEME) writes:
>Here are some more riddles I've picked up over the years.
>They may not be as hard (?) as the "how fast..." one posted recently, but may
>be more useful...
>
>Riddle #5
>(more of a regular brain-teaser)
 
Already I got an unexpected answer to this puzzle, and its my fault, because I
forgot to clarify some of the rules of the test (it was late!) So check to see
the new additions.
 
>
>Old King Ghorn had forged his kingdom from the war-wracked lands of Arndor
>not by the strength of his sword but by the sharpness of mind. It was his
>cleverness that tricked the goblins into leaving; it was trickiness that made
>the dragon wing to better hunting grounds; it was his wisdom that kept the
>barons from feuding amongst themselves and the horsemen from attacking. Peace
>had reigned in Ghornia for 35 years, and the king's sword became rusty as he
>raised his family. Alas, the old king was on his deathbed before he could sire
>any sons; his only heir was his daughter Triella. Now Good King Ghorn knew that
>for peace to continue in Ghornia the next king would have to be as clever, and
>so he devised the following test for his daughter's suitors. He who could pass
>it would become king; all others would die.
>
>The test was thus:
>    The princess was put in the center of a huge 50 foot by 50 foot carpet.
>    Whomsoever could touch her hand would get the princess, and the throne
>    besides. However, the rules of the test were that the contestants could not
>    walk over the carpet, cross the plane of the carpet, or hang from
>    anything; nor could they use anything but their body and wits (i.e. no
>    magic or psionics, nor any items such as ladders, block and tackles etc).
>    Furthermore, only normal humans could be applicants (i.e. no deformed guys
>    with 50 foot arms, or shapechangers).
    Also, the applicant had to go to the princess, not the other way around;
    the princess may not leave her position in the center of the carpet. Thus,
    she may not be charmed, called or lassoed( and dragged) to the applicant.
 
Thanks to all who pointed out this error; for those who have not yet tried to
solve this puzzle my apologies (and if you did figure out that calling her was
the way to do, well you were right. Consider this the harder version of the
same puzzle!)
 
>
>Ghornia now stands; it has a king whose wisdom is unsurpassed. How did the
>king touch Triella's hand?
bye.
-- 
 
**The Avatar*** These are my opinions. Mine mine mine mine! ***SMT0@Lehigh.EDU**
*** For Hire: One Trans-dimensional hero. References available at Britannia ****
**Skara Brae, Middlegate, Purgatory, Caernavon Station, Quendor and elsewhere **
***********Reasonable rates, will work anywhere.  Call anytime******************


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "LEE SONKO" 27-SEP-1993 20:33:42.93
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	Puzz cow

Path: news.tufts.edu!noc.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.kei.com!yeshua.marcam.com!zip.eecs.umich.edu!destroyer!nntp.cs.ubc.ca!vanbc.wimsey.com!deep.rsoft.bc.ca!mindlink.bc.ca!a8831
From: Russell_Ang@mindlink.bc.ca (Russell Ang)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: A boY and his cow
Date: 26 Sep 93 06:21:47 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Lines: 40
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <29634@mindlink.bc.ca>
NNTP-Posting-Host: rsoft.rsoft.bc.ca
 
> A boy along with his cow arrived on a round lake. On the center of the lake
> is a round island. On the center of the island is a very tall tree. The boy
> successfully tied his cow to the tree on the island without ever wetting
> himself. how?
 
*SPOILER!!!* (For real, this time.)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ahem...
Assuming the rope is at least a bit longer than the diameter of the lake, he
can go to the edge of the lake, say "Bessie, stay." and then run around the
lake once, looping the rope around the tree. Then he can tie the end of the
rope in a square knot around the end of the rope that's near Bessie's collar.
He can then tug the collar end of the rope, tightening the loop, until with
enough pulling, the loop is tight and snug around the tree. However, any boy
who does this is not as clever as he thinks, because he now has no way of
untieing Bessie without getting wet or cutting the rope.
 






---------------------



From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FLOCCINAUCHINIHILIPIPIFICATION- LOOK IT UP"  6-OCT-1992 10:18:52.75
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	wives puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!olivea!sgigate!sgiblab!darwin.sura.net!wupost!unlinfo.unl.edu!crcvms.unl.edu!phoffman
From: phoffman@crcvms.unl.edu
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: STORY PUZZLES
Message-ID: <1992Oct5.145842.1@crcvms.unl.edu>
Date: 5 Oct 92 20:58:42 GMT
Sender: news@unlinfo.unl.edu
Organization: University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Lines: 28
Nntp-Posting-Host: crcvms.unl.edu
 
Long ago, after my father had challenged me to figure out most of them, I
was given two books containing "story puzzles" (for lack of a better term).
They were called "How Come?" and How Come, Again?".
They contained puzzles wherein you where given the overview of a story or
situation, and had to (by answering questions answered with "yes" or "no") 
divine the full set of circumstances leading up to the event.
 
They puzzles, as example, followed this kind of delivery:
Two men were having lunch when they spied their respective wives across the
street from where they ate. After paying the tab, they steped across the 
street to greet them. Suddenly, a truck came racing around the corner, striking
one of the men. The hapless fellow realized he was dying, but before succumbing,
he pulled a revolver from his bloody jacket and shot his lunch companion to
death.
How come?
 
I LOVE puzzles like this and would appreciate any tips about where I could
locate ones to add to my collection. If there is interest, I will post
bibliographic citations for the two above-mentioned books.
With thanks,
Paul S. Hoffman
********************************************************************************Paul S. Hoffman	
Paul S. Hoffman			           INTERNET: phoffman@crcvms.unl.edu
OCLC Network Coordinator
Nebraska Library Commission    
1420 P Street	Lincoln, NE   68508
(402) 471-2045  fax: (402) 471-2083        "Solvitar Ambulando"
********************************************************************************


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FLOCCINAUCHINIHILIPIPIFICATION- LOOK IT UP"  6-OCT-1992 10:32:51.27
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	catsndogs puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!wupost!darwin.sura.net!spool.mu.edu!agate!doc.ic.ac.uk!uknet!mcsun!ub4b!news.cs.kuleuven.ac.be!blekul11!frmop11!barilvm!vms.huji.ac.il!wisipc.weizmann.ac.il!wiscon.weizmann.ac.il!
 jhsegal
From: jhsegal@wiscon.weizmann.ac.il (Livy)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: meta-puzzles
Message-ID: <1992Oct5.185415.28025@wisipc.weizmann.ac.il>
Date: 5 Oct 92 18:54:15 GMT
References: <BvnL1u.pC@math.uwaterloo.ca>
Sender: news@wisipc.weizmann.ac.il
Organization: Weizmann Institute of Science, Computation Center
Lines: 58
 
In article <BvnL1u.pC@math.uwaterloo.ca> tjdonald@neumann.uwaterloo.ca () writes:
>Here are a couple of puzzles based on the sort of meta-logic problems
>Raymond Smullyan has written about in a few of his books. Are there any
>other sources for meta-problems? Smullyan's books are the only places I've
>ever come across any...
>
>
>1. On the island of knights and knaves, knights always tell the truth and
>   knaves always lie; and any person on the island is either a knight or a
>   a knave. It seems that a native of the island named Bob was suffering from
>   a particularly rare form of amnesia. It's a fact that Bob owned a total
>   of ten pets, all cats and dogs. It is also a fact he had more cats than
>   dogs. Luckily for Bob, his confusion was cleared up when his friend his
>   friend Marie came by and said "Either you have nine cats and one dog, or
>   you have an even number of both pets." Since Bob knew Marie's type (ie.
>   whether she was a knight or a knave), he figured out how many pets he
>   had right away. So the question is: How many cats does Bob own?
 
7 cats and 3 dogs
and Marie was a knave (liar)>
>
>2. There are two doors, 1 and 2, and only one leads to the grand prize (a
>   dump truck full of twinkies). You possess two keys, gold and silver, and
>   only one opens the door that leads to the twinkies. Here are three
>   statements:
>
>     i. The silver key opens the door that leads to the twinkies.
>    ii. The gold key opens door 2.
>   iii. Door 1 leads to the twinkies.
>
>   Unfortunately, you don't know which of these statements are true and
>   which are false.
>
>   I told Dr. Rocket everything I've just told you. Unable to solve the
>   problem, Dr. Rocket asked me if there more true statements than false
>   statements among i-iii. After I responded (with the correct answer, of
>   course!), the good doctor was still unable to solve the problem. As
>   another hint, I told Dr. Rocket the truth value of one of the statements
>   (although I forget which one) - and almost before I finished speaking
>   the doctor blurted out the correct solution. Can you determine: 1) Which
>   door leads to the twinkies, and 2) Which key opens that door?
>
hmm..Somethink stinks here...I thought about it for a while,and I arrived to
something impossible(all of them must be true,in some situation),so I think
the writer of this one didn't thought enough  about it.Anyway...I am not sure
I am right(in fact I think I am not!),but I don't feel like thinking about it
more.This is my guess: Silver opens door 2 who leads to the twinkies.


Not true,huh?
I knew!


 ---------------This Was Another L I V Y ' S  Production----------------------
 
  __     __  __    ___ __     _     ___   __
    |      |   \     /   |     \       \    | VM/CMS:
    |      |    \   /    |    _ \       \   | JHSEGALL @ Weizmann.weizmann.ac.il
    |___   |       /     |    _  \    |  \  | UNIX:
        |  |      /      |   /    \   |     |  JHSEGAL  @ Wiscon.weizmann.ac.il


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FLOCCINAUCHINIHILIPIPIFICATION- LOOK IT UP"  7-OCT-1992 16:32:04.38
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	my bearing puzz

Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Path: news.tufts.edu!pearl.tufts.edu!lsonko
From: lsonko@pearl.tufts.edu (FLOCCINAUCHINIHILIPIPIFICATION- LOOK IT UP)
Subject: Re: Packing problem
Message-ID: <6OCT199210284778@pearl.tufts.edu>
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Sender: news@news.tufts.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: Tufts University - Medford, MA
References: <1992Oct6.020647.4651@ils.nwu.edu>
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 22:28:00 GMT
 
In article <1992Oct6.020647.4651@ils.nwu.edu>, blum@news.ils.nwu.edu (Daniel Blum) writes...
>A few years ago, this puzzle appeared in the newsletter of the company
>I was working for:
> 
>   Given an infinitely long rectangular strip which is two units wide,
>and circles with diameters of one unit, one can pack them in parallel
>rows of two, like so:
>                      _____________________________
>                      |oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...
>                      |oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...
>                      -----------------------------
>However, there is a more efficient packing.  What is it?
> 
>Unfortunately, I left the company before the solution was given, and
>as fas as _I_ can see, there is no solution.  Any ideas?  
>(Note: I assumed that "more efficient," or whatever the exact original
>phrase was [definitely similar] means that the ratio of covered to
>uncovered area is higher than that of the "obvious" packing - I can't
>think of what else it COULD mean.)
 
I know I know I know!  (grin)     at least I think I do...
 
but let me give another question in reply to yours!
 
a freighter was to carry a shipment of ball bearings to a bicycle plant down
the river.  The captain of the ship noted the volume of his hold and the
density of steel (what the bearings were made of, of course).  He then told the
guy loading the ship to only fill the ship three quarters full, lest the ship
sink under the weight of the bearings.  The loader thought about this for a
moment and told the captain not to worry.  Despite the captain's objections, he
loaded the holds to their maximums. Low and behold, the ship did not sink and
everyone lived happily ever after (especially the captain who moved more
bearings than he expected, making a large bonus).
 
What did the loader know?
 
enjoy,
lee
 


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FLOCCINAUCHINIHILIPIPIFICATION- LOOK IT UP"  7-OCT-1992 16:35:32.64
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	packing puzz ans

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!att!dptg!ulysses!ulysses!guy
From: guy@ulysses.att.com (Guy Jacobson)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Packing problem
Message-ID: <1992Oct6.184701.5084@ulysses.att.com>
Date: 6 Oct 92 18:47:01 GMT
References: <1992Oct6.020647.4651@ils.nwu.edu>
Sender: guy@ulysses (Guy Jacobson)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 57
 
In article <1992Oct6.020647.4651@ils.nwu.edu>, blum@news.ils.nwu.edu (Daniel Blum) writes:
> A few years ago, this puzzle appeared in the newsletter of the company
> I was working for:
> 
>    Given an infinitely long rectangular strip which is two units wide,
> and circles with diameters of one unit, one can pack them in parallel
> rows of two, like so:
>                       _____________________________
>                       |oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...
>                       |oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...
>                       -----------------------------
> However, there is a more efficient packing.  What is it?
> 
> Unfortunately, I left the company before the solution was given, and
> as fas as _I_ can see, there is no solution.  Any ideas?  
 
I can see a way to achieve a density of
 
6 / (sqrt (4 sqrt (3) - 3) + 1) = 2.012
 
circles per unit of strip length, which beats the parallel
row packing by a little bit.  Here's how:
 
Start with a two strips of a hexagonal close packing:
 
----------------
| O O O O O O O 
|O O O O O O O O
----------------
(It's hard to do this kind of diagram in ascii. Imagine that the
 typical circle above is touching four neighbors)
 
Now, notice that although the packing density is just as good (2.0) as the
rectangular parallel row packing, there is now a good deal of play, because
our packing strip is 2.0 units wide, but we are only need a width of
1 + sqrt (3) / 2 (= 1.866) units for our two strips.
 
So we'll do the following:
 
----------------
| O * * O * * O 
|O O * O O * O O
----------------
 
Let's call groups of three mutually adjacent circles marked with O and * as
shown above triangles.  We will now shift each triangle as a fixed unit. 
Push all the O triangles down so that they are flush with the bottom of the
packing strip, and all the * triangles up so they are flush with the top of
the strip.  Now there will be small gaps between adjacent triangles, and we
can shift all the triangles to left a bit to close these gaps and boost the
packing density up to 2.016 (you can do the math yourself)
 
-- 
_________________________________________________________________
Guy Jacobson   (908) 582-6558              AT&T Bell Laboratories
        uucp:  {att,ucbvax}!ulysses!guy	   600 Mountain Avenue
    internet:  guy@ulysses.att.com         Murray Hill NJ, 07974


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FLOCCINAUCHINIHILIPIPIFICATION- LOOK IT UP"  7-OCT-1992 16:39:11.01
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	gry

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!cleveland.Freenet.Edu!cb971
From: cb971@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Marion L. Rappa)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: GRY
Message-ID: <1auk07INN7f6@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
Date: 7 Oct 92 12:08:39 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
Lines: 7
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu
 
 
   Are there more than three words in the English language
that end in gry?
-- 
 
Muntz Rappa
cb971@cleveland.Freenet.Edu


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FLOCCINAUCHINIHILIPIPIFICATION- LOOK IT UP" 15-OCT-1992 09:39:14.65
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	peg puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!olivea!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!scd.hp.com!hplextra!hplntx!apollo.hp.com!potamian
From: potamian@apollo.HP.COM (Spyros Potamianos)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: teez brainbuster
Keywords: peg puzzle
Message-ID: <BvzAtr.165@hplabs.hpl.hp.com>
Date: 11 Oct 92 22:37:01 GMT
References: <11OCT199202085992@wccf.mit.edu>
Sender: news@hplabs.hpl.hp.com (HPL News Posting Service)
Reply-To: potamian@hpl.hp.com
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company
Lines: 71
 
In article <11OCT199202085992@wccf.mit.edu>, huh@wccf.mit.edu (GENE SIMON HUH) writes:
|> Dear puzzlers,
|> 
|>      I have a puzzle at my house called "Teez Brainbuster".  It consists of 
|> nine holes in a block of plastic, all lined up.  The initial setup of the 
|> puzzle consists of four blue pegs in holes #1 thru #4 and four red pegs in 
|> holes #6 thru #9, like this:
|> 
|>          B B B B O R R R R
|> 
|> where B = blue peg
|>       R = red peg
|>  and  O = empty hole
|> 
|> The object is to switch the positions of the blue and red pegs, i.e.,
|> 
|>         R R R R O B B B B 
|> 
|> The allowable moves are: 
|>   a) move one blue peg into an adjacent empty hole
|>   b) move one red peg into an adjacent empty hole
|>   c) a peg may "jump" over one (and only one) peg of either color, provided 
|> that the hole that the peg "jumps" into is empty 
|>   d) blue pegs can only be moved to the right; red pegs can only be moved to 
|> the left
|> 
|>      The solution is NOT to turn the plastic block around 180 degrees. :-)
|> 
|>      Normally I'm all right at puzzles, but I can't figure this one out.  I 
|> didn't see it in the FAQ, so here it is.  Has anybody got the solution handy?  
|> If so, are my rules (for allowable moves) incorrect?
|> 
|> Thanks in advance,
|> 
|> Gene Huh
|> huh@wccf.mit.edu  or  huh@mitwccf
 
A small C program revealed the following 2 answers:
    bRrBBbRRRrBBBBrRRRbBBrRb
    rBbRRrBBBbRRRRbBBBrRRbBr
where r/b means "move a red/blue peg in an adjacent empty hole"
and R/B means "a red/blue peg jumps over another peg to land on the empty
hole". As you can see the solutions are symmetrical, palindromes,
and remain so even if you change the size of the board.
If you have a board with 2*N+1 holes, N red and N blue pegs,
the answer will be:
	b
	Rr
	BBb
	RRRr
	......
	BBBB....B (N times)
	......
	rRRR
	bBB
	rR
	b
 
I tried to for a more "theoretical" analysis, but I had no luck.
The only interesting things I could find was that this solution
is "greedy" (moving a peg by 2 holes (i.e. jumping) is always better
than a plain move to the adjacent empty hole)
The other interesting thing is that near the middle of these moves you will
end up with the board looking like:
	BRBRBRBRO
(this is where you do these 4 'B's). From that point on all your moves
are forced (if you take into account that you must always "jump" if you
can) and a mirror image of your previous moves.
 
Spyros Potamianos
potamian@hpl.hp.com


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FLOCCINAUCHINIHILIPIPIFICATION- LOOK IT UP" 15-OCT-1992 09:40:02.03
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	consonant puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!cbnewsc!cbfsb!att-out!pacbell.com!network.ucsd.edu!munnari.oz.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!uqcspe!cs.uq.oz.au!grue
From: grue@cs.uq.oz.au (Pauli Dale)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Word ending in 5 Consonants
Message-ID: <10600@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au>
Date: 12 Oct 92 01:52:01 GMT
References: <1992Oct8.021445.23776@nas.nasa.gov> <Oct.8.01.31.23.1992.24423@remus.rutgers.edu> <baljeual.718587081@uther> <1992Oct9.013419.17725@nas.nasa.gov>
Sender: news@cs.uq.oz.au
Reply-To: grue@cs.uq.oz.au
Lines: 42
 
asimov@wk223.nas.nasa.gov (Daniel A. Asimov) writes:
 
>Can you think of a (not too uncommon) seven-letter word, 
>Scrabble-eligible, with the consonant-vowel pattern CVCCCCC
>OTHER THAN the word "lengths" ?
 
I've managed to find 58 words with that pattern.  If you take out the ones
that are using the letter 'y' this gets reduced to 6.
 
 
>No fair using a computer search of a word-list!!!!
 
Life isn't fair...
 
Spoiler follows:


 
bashlyk benzyls bergylt borscht bortsch bostryx butyryl caddyss
cockshy cornfly corymbs curstly dactyls decrypt dicycly diglyph
diptych dirndls fifthly firstly formyls forthby gallfly harshly
highths kitschy konfyts ladyfly lengths lengthy lewdsby lichtly
lightly martyrs martyry methyls mightly mightst monthly nightly
ninthly nitryls pentyls rightly sandfly selsyns sightly sixthly
tapstry tenthly tetryls tightly valkyrs warmths welshry wightly
worldly zephyrs
 
The six without y's in them are:
 
borscht bortsch dirndls highths lengths mightst warmths
 
 
 
 
 
        						Pauli
 
Paul Dale                       | grue@cs.uq.oz.au
Department of Computer Science  | +61 7 365 2445
University of Queensland        |
Australia, 4072                 | Did you know that there are 41 two letter
                                |     words containing the letter 'a'?
--


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FLOCCINAUCHINIHILIPIPIFICATION- LOOK IT UP" 15-OCT-1992 09:42:20.52
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	shakespear anagram puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!rpi!think.com!ames!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!cleveland.Freenet.Edu!al037
From: al037@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dave Polewka)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: William Shakespeare -- anagrams
Message-ID: <1bc8o4INN8q7@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
Date: 12 Oct 92 16:22:28 GMT
Reply-To: al037@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Dave Polewka)
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Lines: 22
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc10.ins.cwru.edu
 
 
 
William Shakespeare -- anagrams
********************************
  1.  Mikhail was a sleeper.
  2.  Raisa: "We'll keep Misha!"
  3.  Premise: Allah is weak.
  4.  Shall I sweep Amerika?
  5.  We like A.A.! <sharp smile>
  6.  We'll make Asia perish!
  7.  I saw Shea kill Ampere!
  8.  I impale a lesser hawk.
  9.  A simple hiker saw ale.
 10.  I sear Ike's whale lamp.
 11.  Imp Law: raise a shekel.
 12.  Heim's Law: lase a piker!
 13.  Simile: We "Hep" as a lark.
*********************************
-- 
=======================
"Endeavor to persevere"
=======================


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FLOCCINAUCHINIHILIPIPIFICATION- LOOK IT UP" 15-OCT-1992 09:51:56.73
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	balloon puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!ncratl!ncrwat!53iss6!tjgerman
From: tjgerman@53iss6.Waterloo.NCR.COM (Trevor German)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: TRAPPED BUBBLE
Message-ID: <10002@ncrwat.Waterloo.NCR.COM>
Date: 13 Oct 92 17:46:54 GMT
Sender: news@ncrwat.Waterloo.NCR.COM
Organization: Imaging Systems Division, NCR Corp, Waterloo, Ont., CANADA
Lines: 26
 
 
	This problem has been repeated by me in various circles and
	I have yet to hear a satisfactory answer. I wonder if anyone
	else has any new input.
 
	------------------------------------------------------------
 
		Take a cylinder of _incompressible_ fluid. Attach a
	balloon to the lid of the cylinder and seal the cylinder
	with the lid such that there is no air trapped within.
 
		Now flip the cylinder upside down.
 
		The question is, what happens to the baloon. Does it
	get bigger or smaller. What happens to the pressure in the 
	baloon, does it change. What are the thermal effects if any.
	
		As a corolorary what would happen if the situation
	was reversed and the baloon was stuck to the bottom before
	the fluid was added, the tube sealed, and inverted.
 
	------------------------------------------------------------
--
       >|  "Only average people            | Trevor J German BSc    |<
       >|        never make mistakes."     | NCR, Waterloo, Ontario |<
       >| tjgerman@53iss6.Waterloo.NCR.COM | Canada.                |< 


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FLOCCINAUCHINIHILIPIPIFICATION- LOOK IT UP" 15-OCT-1992 09:58:52.49
To:	LSONKO
CC:	LSONKO
Subj:	peg puzz

 
The solution to your puzzle is as follows:
 
1. RRRR0BBBB     
2. RRRRB0BBB
3. RRR0BRBBB
4. RR0RBRBBB
5. RRBR0RBBB
6. RRBRBR0BB
7. RRBRBRB0B
8. RRBRB0BRB
9. RRB0BRBRB
10 R0BRBRBRB
11 0RBRBRBRB
12 BR0RBRBRB
13 BRBR0RBRB
14 BRBRBR0RB
15 BRBRBRBR0
16 BRBRBRB0R
17 BRBRB0BRR
18 BRB0BRBRR
19 B0BRBRBRR
20 BB0RBRBRR
21 BBBR0RBRR
22 BBBRBR0RR
23 BBBRB0RRR
24 BBB0BRRRR
25 BBBB0RRRR                       QED
 
---------------------------------------------------------------
Troy Tinnes      tinnes@ocsc.nml.gss.mot.com
Peeve: manuals written by techies


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 19-OCT-1992 12:46:48.21
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	ages puz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!news.cso.uiuc.edu!acheng
From: acheng@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Albert Cheng)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Story Puzzle (spoiler)
Message-ID: <1992Oct15.184724.3368@ncsa.uiuc.edu>
Date: 15 Oct 92 18:47:24 GMT
References: <int470u.718541096@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au> <1992Oct9.111838.1@ntuvax>
Sender: usenet@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Net Noise owner)
Organization: Nat'l Ctr for Supercomp App (NCSA) @ University of Illinois
Lines: 67
Originator: acheng@shalom.ncsa.uiuc.edu
 
In article <1992Oct9.111838.1@ntuvax> sb102760@ntuvax writes:
>In article <int470u.718541096@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au>, int470u@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au (Wes Jones) writes:
>> This is a puzzle my maths teacher asked back in high school:
>> 
>> A mathematician and a magician were walking down the road together.
>> The logician turned to the mathematician, and said, "The sum of the
>> ages of my three children, which can be considered integers, is 13,
>> and the product is the number on that bus over there.  What are the
>> ages?"
>> 
>> The mathematician, after some thought, replied that he did not have
>> enough information to solve the problem.  The logician then said that
>> his oldest child was learning to play the piano.  The mathematician
>> then told the logician the ages.
>> 
>> What are the ages ?
>
>	Would I need to know the number of the bus, or at least the
>	kind of number buses have in wherever the location of the
>	story is ?
 
Nop.  There are limited possible combinations of ages of the children
(e.g., no kid can be older than 11, assuming all kids are at least 1).
Only two combinations give the same products.  The piano lesson hint
eliminates one.  Answer is:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ages: 9, 2, 2


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 19-OCT-1992 12:48:42.88
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	cylinder puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!destroyer!gatech!emory!ncratl!ncrwat!53iss6!tjgerman
From: tjgerman@53iss6.Waterloo.NCR.COM (Trevor German)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: TRAPPED BUBBLE (STILL NO RIGHT ANSWER)
Message-ID: <10015@ncrwat.Waterloo.NCR.COM>
Date: 16 Oct 92 12:46:17 GMT
Sender: news@ncrwat.Waterloo.NCR.COM
Organization: Imaging Systems Division, NCR Corp, Waterloo, Ont., CANADA
Lines: 59
 
 
	----------------------------------------------------
 
 
	OK so far NO right answers to the puzzle on the board.
	(I did get one mailed to me though). It appears that
	some of you thought the cylinder was open at the end
	and the balloon was attached open ended over the mouth
	at one end. Not.
 
		The cylinder is closed at one end and capped
	at the other. The baloon is a closed baloon containing
	air at 1 atmos + rubber pressure (The initial pressure  in the
	baloon does not make much difference). Actually in the
	original version of this the baloon was only a bubble
	stuck to the bottom but there were so many questions
	as to how to "stick" a bubble to the bottom that I
	changed it to baloon to save the traffic.
 
	The fluid is assumed to be a perfect incompressible fluid
	in that it neither expands not contracts under the influence
	of pressure. 
 
	The walls of the cylinder are very strong and will not deform
	at the pressures in the puzzle.
 
	So restated the puzzle goes like this.
 
	------------------------------------------------------------
 
		Take a cylinder closed at one end filled
	with a perfect _incompressible_ fluid. Attach a 
	balloon filled with air and tied 
	inside the lid of the cylinder and seal the cylinder
	with the lid such that there is no extra air trapped within.
	
 
		Now flip the cylinder upside down.
 
		The question is, what happens to the baloon. Does it
	get bigger or smaller. What happens to the pressure in the 
	baloon, does it change. What are the thermal effects if any.
	
 
 
		As a corolorary what would happen if the situation
	was reversed and the baloon was stuck INSIDE the bottom before
	the fluid was added, the tube sealed, and inverted.
 
		You may, for the purpose of discussion ignore atmosheric
	effects.
 
		The solution to the first case is relatively simple
	the second case is less expected.
	------------------------------------------------------------
--
       >|  "Only average people            | Trevor J German BSc    |<
       >|        never make mistakes."     | NCR, Waterloo, Ontario |<
       >| tjgerman@53iss6.Waterloo.NCR.COM | Canada.                |< 


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 21-OCT-1992 16:50:06.25
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	noahs ark puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!olivea!uunet!newsgate.watson.ibm.com!yktnews!admin!cliff
From: cliff@watson.ibm.com (cliff)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Cliff Puzzle 10: The Ark Series
Message-ID: <1992Oct20.184354.165170@watson.ibm.com>
Date: 20 Oct 92 18:43:54 GMT
Sender: news@watson.ibm.com (NNTP News Poster)
Organization: A
Lines: 32
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Nntp-Posting-Host: cliff.watson.ibm.com
 
Title: Cliff Puzzle 10: The Ark Series                                          
From: cliff@watson.ibm.com                                                      
                                                                                
If you respond to this puzzle, if possible please send me your name,            
address, affiliation, e-mail address, so I can properly credit you if           
you provide unique information.  PLEASE ALSO directly mail me a copy of         
your response in addition to any responding you do in the newsgroup.  I         
will assume it is OK to describe your answer in any article or                  
publication I may write in the future, with attribution to you, unless          
you state otherwise.  Thanks, Cliff Pickover                                    
                                                                                
      * * *                                                                     
                                                                                
1.  Given a large ark containing 2 individuals of every animal species          
in the world, what would be the approximate total weight of all the             
organisms?  How would your answer differ if you included every plant,           
bacterial, and fungal organism?                                                 
                                                                                
2.  Assume that all other organisms on earth were dead except for those         
on the ark in question 1, and that the animals were released 1000 years         
ago.  What would you expect to be surviving today?  (Assume that, where         
applicable, a male and female were used for each species.)                      
                                                                                
3.  Assume that the year is 1992 and that it rained for 40 days, and the        
rain covered all the land on the earth.  Further assume that the flood          
waters receded to pre-flood days within several months.                         
                                                                                
   What would be the geopolitical changes as a result of the                    
temporary flood?                                                                
                                                                                
   What would be the ecological changes as a result of the                      
temporary flood?                                                                


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 21-OCT-1992 16:51:44.92
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	cool liar puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!olivea!uunet!munnari.oz.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!swindley
From: swindley@elec.uq.oz.au (Robert Swindley)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: answer to ultimate puzzle wanted
Message-ID: <swindley.719645754@s1.elec.uq.oz.au>
Date: 21 Oct 92 05:35:54 GMT
Sender: news@bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au (USENET News System)
Organization: Prentice Centre, University of Queensland
Lines: 20
 
 
I found a few of the Ultimate Puzzle series in
rec.puz about a month ago and never got back in time to 
find an answer.
 
The puzzle goes something like:
You are at a junction of two paths.
 
There are three guys there, and each either always
tells the truth or always lies.  You don't know
how many are liars and you don't know who's lying.
 
The question is:
 
What is the one question you must ask one of the guys
in order to determine which path to take ????
 
please email   at   swindley@s1.elec.uq.oz.au
 
thanks


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 21-OCT-1992 16:53:20.46
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	leviation666 puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!olivea!uunet!newsgate.watson.ibm.com!yktnews!admin!cliff
From: cliff@watson.ibm.com (cliff)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Cliff Puzzle 11: The Leviathan Number
Message-ID: <1992Oct21.135208.119425@watson.ibm.com>
Date: 21 Oct 92 13:52:08 GMT
Sender: news@watson.ibm.com (NNTP News Poster)
Organization: A
Lines: 33
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Nntp-Posting-Host: cliff.watson.ibm.com
 
Title: Cliff Puzzle 11: The Leviathan Number                                    
From: cliff@watson.ibm.com                                                      
                                                                                
If you respond to this puzzle, if possible please send me your name,            
address, affiliation, e-mail address, so I can properly credit you if           
you provide unique information.  PLEASE ALSO directly mail me a copy of         
your response in addition to any responding you do in the newsgroup.  I         
will assume it is OK to describe your answer in any article or                  
publication I may write in the future, with attribution to you, unless          
you state otherwise.  Thanks, Cliff Pickover                                    
                                                                                
      * * *                                                                     
                                                                                
                                                                                
   Many interesting observations have recently been published                   
concerning various number theory properties of the "number of the               
beast", 666.  In this new puzzle here I ask you to consider the monstrous                                 
"leviathan number", a number so large as to make the number of electrons,                
protons, and neutrons in the universe (10**79) pale in comparison.  (It         
also makes a googol (10**100) look kind of small).                              
                                                                                
The leviathan number is defined as (10**666)!, where the "!" indicates          
factorial.                                                                      
                                                                                
1.  What are the first 6 digits of the leviathan number?  Hint:  you            
need not actually compute the leviathan to determine this.  If you can          
determine the first 6 digits, please carefully spell out your method.           
                                                                                
2. Could modern supercomputers compute the leviathan, or will this              
beyond the realm of humankind for the next century?                             
                                                                                
3. Even if we cannot compute the leviathan, how many other                      
characteristics of this number can we write down.                               


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 21-OCT-1992 16:54:57.41
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	leviation666 puzz ans

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!rpi!think.com!ames!sun-barr!rutgers!igor.rutgers.edu!remus.rutgers.edu!clong
From: clong@remus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Cliff Puzzle 11: The Leviathan Number (PARTIAL SPOILER)
Message-ID: <Oct.21.13.35.27.1992.19421@remus.rutgers.edu>
Date: 21 Oct 92 17:35:28 GMT
References: <1992Oct21.135208.119425@watson.ibm.com>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 33
 
In article <1992Oct21.135208.119425@watson.ibm.com>, Cliff Pickover writes:
   
> The leviathan number is defined as (10**666)!, where the "!" indicates
> factorial.
 
> 1.  What are the first 6 digits of the leviathan number?
 
The simplest technique would be to use Stirling's formula to compute
the mantissa, i.e. frac( log(n) ) = frac( log(2*pi)/2 + log(n)/2
n*(log(n)-log(e)) ).  In our case n = 10^666, so this equals
frac( log(2*pi)/2 + 333 + 10^666*(666-log(e)) ) =
frac( log(2*pi)/2 + 10^666*(1-log(e)) ), so we'd basically need
to know something like 10 digits to the right of the decimal point
for log(2*pi)/2, and something like 700 digits for log(e) (which is
easily doable).  We then compute (1-log(e)), shift the digits 666
spaces to the left, and we're all set.
 
> 2. Could modern supercomputers compute the leviathan, or will this
> beyond the realm of humankind for the next century?
 
The number of digits is more than 10^668, and this compares
unfavorably to the number of particles in the universe.  Furthermore,
even if a googol digits could be output per second, you'd never
make it before the end of the universe.  So, I'd say it's beyond
the realm of humanity, period.
 
> 3. Even if we cannot compute the leviathan, how many other
> characteristics of this number can we write down.
 
As another puzzle, how many zeroes does it end with, and what are
the last two non-zero digits?
-- 
Chris Long, 265 Old York Rd., Bridgewater, NJ  08807-2618


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 26-OCT-1992 10:54:08.05
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	boil water puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!olivea!charnel!rat!usc!rpi!rogerj
From: rogerj@aix.rpi.edu (Diversion (Jeff Rogers))
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Water and ice
Message-ID: <rh0zm0=@rpi.edu>
Date: 23 Oct 92 00:20:57 GMT
Lines: 8
Nntp-Posting-Host: aix.rpi.edu
 
 
Heres a simple puzzle I just came up with (by solving it):
 
How can you boil water with an ice cube?
-- 
"I can see 'em                          | "Want me to create a diversion?"
    I can see 'em                       | Diversion
        Someone wake me when it's over" | rogerj@rpi.edu


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 26-OCT-1992 10:54:30.58
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	boil ice puzz ans

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!uwm.edu!ogicse!das-news.harvard.edu!husc-news.harvard.edu!ramanujan!elkies
From: elkies@ramanujan.harvard.edu (Noam Elkies)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Water and ice
Message-ID: <1992Oct22.210732.16676@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 23 Oct 92 01:07:31 GMT
References: <rh0zm0=@rpi.edu>
Organization: Harvard Math Department
Lines: 11
Nntp-Posting-Host: ramanujan.harvard.edu
 
In article <rh0zm0=@rpi.edu> rogerj@aix.rpi.edu
(Diversion (Jeff Rogers)) writes:
>
>How can you boil water with an ice cube?
 
make a lens out of the ice cube and focus sunlight onto
the water?  (probably easier with cloudy or dyed water,
the better to absorb the light)
 
--Noam D. Elkies (elkies@zariski.harvard.edu)
  Dept. of Mathematics, Harvard University


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 26-OCT-1992 10:55:28.22
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	boil ice puzz ans

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!hobbes.physics.uiowa.edu!news.iastate.edu!IASTATE.EDU!macster
From: macster@IASTATE.EDU (Michael C Mccarty)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Water and ice
Message-ID: <1992Oct22.230949@IASTATE.EDU>
Date: 23 Oct 92 04:09:49 GMT
References: <rh0zm0=@rpi.edu> <94279@netnews.upenn.edu>
Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System)
Reply-To: macster@IASTATE.EDU (Michael C Mccarty)
Organization: Iowa State University
Lines: 34
 
In article <94279@netnews.upenn.edu>, varhus@minuet.seas.upenn.edu (Kristofor A
Varhus) writes:
> In article <rh0zm0=@rpi.edu> rogerj@aix.rpi.edu (Diversion (Jeff Rogers))
writes:
> >
> >Heres a simple puzzle I just came up with (by solving it):
> >
> >How can you boil water with an ice cube?
> >-- 
> >"I can see 'em                          | "Want me to create a diversion?"
> >    I can see 'em                       | Diversion
> >        Someone wake me when it's over" | rogerj@rpi.edu
> 
> If memory serves me correctly, you must heat the water to boiling inside
> some kind of closeable container, and close it, so that pressure builds
> inside the container.  Then by cooling the container down quickly (such
> as with an ice cube), the steam will condense and the pressure will be
> lowered so that the water must let off steam, or "boil", in order to
> maintain an equilibrium.  I may be wrong about this, because I'm trying
> to think back over many years to remember where I saw this done.
>
> Kristofor A. Varhus	OK, I know, I don't have a very impressive sig.
> 			Hey, I'm working on it!
 
 
You are correct!!!!  I know this because I recently saw this very thing done on
'Mr. Wizard's World'!!!!! ;^)  Heh Heh... 
 
Sorry, Mr. Rogers (no pun intended :-), you were not the first to try this... 
 
				Mike.
 
 
Mr. Wizard is God's gift to science....


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 26-OCT-1992 10:55:55.15
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	boil ice puzz ans

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!olivea!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!rpi!rogerj
From: rogerj@aix.rpi.edu (Diversion (Jeff Rogers))
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Water and ice
Message-ID: <hw0zp1d@rpi.edu>
Date: 23 Oct 92 07:49:43 GMT
References: <rh0zm0=@rpi.edu> <94279@netnews.upenn.edu> <1992Oct22.230949@IASTATE.EDU>
Lines: 25
Nntp-Posting-Host: aix.rpi.edu
 
macster@IASTATE.EDU (Michael C Mccarty) writes:
 
>You are correct!!!!  I know this because I recently saw this very thing done on
>'Mr. Wizard's World'!!!!! ;^)  Heh Heh... 
 
>Sorry, Mr. Rogers (no pun intended :-), you were not the first to try this... 
 
>				Mike.
 
No, I guess I wasn't. But I did it by accident, not even trying to. I was
nukeing some vegetables, and then took the container out of the microwave
with the cover (which had popped off) still laying on top of it. The kitchen
was kinda cool, and I noticed the cover getting sucked in. When I looked
closely, I saw bubbles forming in the water, and remembered (high school
chem here) that water boils at cooler temperatures in lower pressure. And I
thought "Aha! rec.puzzles material here!"
 
Too bad. I guess I should watch Mr. Wizard more often ;-)
 
Diversion
 
-- 
"I can see 'em                          | "Want me to create a diversion?"
    I can see 'em                       | Diversion
        Someone wake me when it's over" | rogerj@rpi.edu


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 26-OCT-1992 10:56:33.25
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	slide puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!rpi!gatech!news.ans.net!newsgate.watson.ibm.com!yktnews!admin!cliff
From: cliff@watson.ibm.com (cliff)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Cliff Puzzle 12: Slides in Hell
Message-ID: <1992Oct23.160130.166012@watson.ibm.com>
Date: 23 Oct 92 16:01:30 GMT
Sender: news@watson.ibm.com (NNTP News Poster)
Organization: A
Lines: 30
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Nntp-Posting-Host: cliff.watson.ibm.com
 
Title: Cliff Puzzle 12: Slides in Hell                                          
From: cliff@watson.ibm.com                                                      
                                                                                
If you respond to this puzzle, if possible please send me your name,            
address, affiliation, e-mail address, so I can properly credit you if           
you provide unique information.  PLEASE ALSO directly mail me a copy of         
your response in addition to any responding you do in the newsgroup.  I         
will assume it is OK to describe your answer in any article or                  
publication I may write in the future, with attribution to you, unless          
you state otherwise.  Thanks, Cliff Pickover                                    
                                                                                
      * * *                                                                     
                                                                                
Consider a metallic slide with 10 large holes in it equally spaced from         
top to bottom.  If you attempt to slide down the slide you have a 50%           
probability of sliding through each hole in the slide into an oleaginous        
substance beneath the slide during each encounter with a hole.                  
                                                                                
1.  If you were a gambling person, which hole would you bet a person            
would fall through?                                                             
                                                                                
2.  If you were a gambling person, how many attempts would it require           
for a person to slide from the top of the slide to the bottom without           
falling through a single hole.                                                  
                                                                                
3.  If all the people on earth lined up to go down the slide, and they          
slid down a more horrifying slide with 100 holes at a rate of 1 person          
per second, when would you expect the first person to arrive at the             
bottom of the slide without falling through.                                    
An hour? A day? A decade? ...                                                   


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 26-OCT-1992 10:57:24.09
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	ladder puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!gatech!news.ans.net!newsgate.watson.ibm.com!yktnews!admin!cliff
From: cliff@watson.ibm.com (cliff)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Cliff Puzzle 13: Ladders to Heaven
Message-ID: <1992Oct23.193252.108077@watson.ibm.com>
Date: 23 Oct 92 19:32:52 GMT
Sender: news@watson.ibm.com (NNTP News Poster)
Organization: A
Lines: 39
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Nntp-Posting-Host: cliff.watson.ibm.com
 
Title: Cliff Puzzle 13: Ladders to Heaven                                       
From: cliff@watson.ibm.com                                                      
                                                                                
If you respond to this puzzle, if possible please send me your name,            
address, affiliation, e-mail address, so I can properly credit you if           
you provide unique information.  PLEASE ALSO directly mail me a copy of         
your response in addition to any responding you do in the newsgroup.  I         
will assume it is OK to describe your answer in any article or                  
publication I may write in the future, with attribution to you, unless          
you state otherwise.  Thanks, Cliff Pickover                                    
                                                                                
      * * *                                                                     
                                                                                
Consider the following scenario.  A standard ladder stretches from each         
country on the earth upward a distance equal to the distance from the           
earth to the moon.                                                              
                                                                                
Assume:                                                                         
1. the ladder is made out of a strong metal such as                             
titanium, which will not break.                                                 
2. the ladder is inclined at a very steep angle, 70 degrees, for                
each country.                                                                   
3. there is a breathable atmosphere.                                            
4. the people (or teams of people) are allowed to use standard                  
mountain climbing and camping gear, e.g. ropes, backpacks, etc. but not         
sophisticated electrical mechanisms, engines, etc.                              
5. a reward is given to whomever reaches the top of the ladder                  
first: 1 million dollars to that person.  In addition the country's             
national debt is wiped out.                                                     
                                                                                
Questions:                                                                      
1.  Approximate how long it would take a person (or team of people) to          
reach the top of the ladder.  Days?  Weeks?  Years?                             
                                                                                
2. Which country would be the first?                                            
                                                                                
3. Is there any novel method you would suggest to achieve this goal?            
                                                                                
4. Is this task impossible to carry out.                                        


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 26-OCT-1992 10:58:43.20
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	ladder puzz ans

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!uwm.edu!caen!hellgate.utah.edu!asylum.cs.utah.edu!tolman
From: tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Cliff Puzzle 13: Ladders to Heaven
Message-ID: <1992Oct23.194917.19957@hellgate.utah.edu>
Date: 24 Oct 92 01:49:17 GMT
References: <1992Oct23.193252.108077@watson.ibm.com>
Organization: University of Utah, CompSci Dept
Lines: 78
 
>Consider the following scenario.  A standard ladder stretches from each    
>country on the earth upward a distance equal to the distance from the     
>earth to the moon.                                                    
>Assume:                                                                
 
>1. the ladder is made out of a strong metal such as                    
>titanium, which will not break.                                        
>2. the ladder is inclined at a very steep angle, 70 degrees, for      
>each country.                                                          
>3. there is a breathable atmosphere.                                 
>4. the people (or teams of people) are allowed to use standard          
>mountain climbing and camping gear, e.g. ropes, backpacks, etc. but not 
>sophisticated electrical mechanisms, engines, etc.                     
>5. a reward is given to whomever reaches the top of the ladder            
>first: 1 million dollars to that person.  In addition the country's     
>national debt is wiped out.                                         
 
>Questions:                                                           
>1.  Approximate how long it would take a person (or team of people) to
>reach the top of the ladder.  Days?  Weeks?  Years?                     
>2. Which country would be the first?                                   
>3. Is there any novel method you would suggest to achieve this goal?     
>4. Is this task impossible to carry out.                                 
 
 
  The moon has a mean distance of 3.48*10^8 meters from the earth.
 Your question does not explicitly state whether we are to attain that
distance above the earth, or along the length of the ladder.  I will assume
for simplicity that the ladder is merely 3.5*10^8 meters long.
 
  A million dollars does not mean diddly, considering the task at hand.
It is not clear who would "erase the national debt", so that seems a bit
silly.  I will assume though that these guys will race like madmen to get
to the top.  Presumably there will be a whole crew, some "leading" and
some providing support, food, and other such necessities.  Ropes could
be arranged in a pully system with men at the "intersections" who would
attach and detach packages.  Waste packages would be sent down from above,
attached to the top of a particular rope pulley system, and a new package
would be attached to the bottom.  The man running the pully would account
for the difference in the weight (contributing his strength to pull the
presumably slightly heavier new packages upwards)
 
  Here, I will totally guess.  A person could probably climb at least
10,000 feet in a day, in very good shape.  (I personally climbed that
far in a single day in the grand canyon, but barely made it, let alone day
after day)  So lets say this professional is 3 times as good, and travels
10,000 meters... whew!  This leaves 3.4*10^4 days for the job, or at least
93 years!  Clearly, we will have to have teams trade off, for the first 
teams will be dead by the time they get to the top.  Pregnant women will
have to climb along too to provide new climbers!
 
  I am not sure the rope pully system above would work so great, considering
how massive an undertaking this is.  I will bet that my estimate above
is way off, by at least a factor of 2.  Therefore, maybe it could be done
in a single life time.  However the task of providing food and supplies
is not trivial, this is the major bottleneck probably.  If you had one
person staged every 10 kilometers that means still a population of 30,000
to feed, just as a support staff!  This could be reduced way down by
allowing air support to provide food.  The only realistic way it could be
done would be to have people growing food on different levels in
communities, which then function to pass food and needed supplied upwards.
 
Imagine trying to feed 30,000 people distributed at 10 kilometers over
a thin ladder!  It would be hard enough to feed that many people, let
alone passing it along only one route.  Major distribution problem.  If
each person ate only 0.06lb per day, this would still be a TON of food
which would have to be passed up... impossible for a single human to move
a TON of food 10 kilometers upwards by themselves in a single day, even
with the waste product scenerio above..
It appears as if you MUST have communities living at different heights,
collecting rain water and growing their own food.
 
I would bet that this task would NOT be undertaken, unless it were a command
from God.  There is a story about this very concept, where a civilization
builds a tower into "heaven" above, I can't remember where I read it but
it was pretty cool.  A sci-fi version of Babel.  They reach the top, and
it is a shell which they drill through.... I'll let you read it to find
out what was on the other side.


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 26-OCT-1992 11:00:38.64
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	worker b-day puzz

Xref: news.tufts.edu sci.math:13171 rec.puzzles:3525
Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!news.bbn.com!olivea!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!igor.rutgers.edu!remus.rutgers.edu!clong
From: clong@remus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long)
Newsgroups: sci.math,rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: My little village's birthday problem (SPOILER)
Message-ID: <Oct.24.05.17.13.1992.22443@remus.rutgers.edu>
Date: 24 Oct 92 09:17:14 GMT
References: <6016@tuegate.tue.nl>
Followup-To: sci.math
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 18
 
In article <6016@tuegate.tue.nl>, Jan Willem Nienhuys writes:
 
> How many people live in my town (excluding the leap birthdays)?
 
Use inclusion-exclusion to get that for n people p(n) = \sum_{i=0}^n
(-1)^i * (365 C i) * (1 - i/365)^n.  We can approximate (1 - i/365)^n
by e^{i*n/365} and so p ~ \sum_{i=0}^n (365 C i) * (-e^{n/365})^i =
(1 - e^{n/365})^n.  An easy calculation gives that p(n) first exceeds
1/2 when n=2288, and this should be quite accurate, but I'll check
when I have the time.
 
Let me tell you about the town I'm from.  In this town no worker
has any weekends or holidays off, except if another worker has
a birthday, then everyone has off.  Luckily for productivity, the
number of workers is such that the expected number of worker-days
is maximized.  How many people work in my town, ignoring leap days?
-- 
Chris Long, 265 Old York Rd., Bridgewater, NJ  08807-2618


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 26-OCT-1992 11:00:59.22
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	slide puzz ans

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!uwm.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!igor.rutgers.edu!remus.rutgers.edu!clong
From: clong@remus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Cliff Puzzle 12: Slides in Hell (SPOILER)
Message-ID: <Oct.24.05.48.21.1992.23129@remus.rutgers.edu>
Date: 24 Oct 92 09:48:22 GMT
References: <1992Oct23.160130.166012@watson.ibm.com>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 36
 
In article <1992Oct23.160130.166012@watson.ibm.com>, Cliff Pickover writes:
 
> Consider a metallic slide with 10 large holes in it equally spaced from
> top to bottom.  If you attempt to slide down the slide you have a 50%
> probability of sliding through each hole in the slide into an oleaginous
> substance beneath the slide during each encounter with a hole.
 
> 1.  If you were a gambling person, which hole would you bet a person
> would fall through?
 
The probability of falling into hole i is (1/2)^i, so your best bet
would be hole 1.
 
> 2.  If you were a gambling person, how many attempts would it require
> for a person to slide from the top of the slide to the bottom without
> falling through a single hole.
 
The probability of success is p = (1/2)^10, and as each trial is
independant the expected number of trials before success is 1/p or
2^10.
 
> 3.  If all the people on earth lined up to go down the slide, and they
> slid down a more horrifying slide with 100 holes at a rate of 1 person
> per second, when would you expect the first person to arrive at the
> bottom of the slide without falling through.
 
In this case the number of expected trials is 2^100, which is much
larger than the total number of people.
 
> An hour? A day? A decade? ...
 
Try about 10^24 years.  As another problem, assuming a large enough
supply of sliders estimate when the slide will wear through from
friction.
-- 
Chris Long, 265 Old York Rd., Bridgewater, NJ  08807-2618


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 26-OCT-1992 11:01:56.68
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	b-day puzz

Xref: news.tufts.edu sci.math:13182 rec.puzzles:3535
Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!rpi!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!galois!riesz!jbaez
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Newsgroups: sci.math,rec.puzzles
Subject: Another sort of birthday puzzle
Message-ID: <1992Oct24.183017.13325@galois.mit.edu>
Date: 24 Oct 92 18:30:17 GMT
References: <6016@tuegate.tue.nl> <Oct.24.05.17.13.1992.22443@remus.rutgers.edu>
Sender: news@galois.mit.edu
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 9
Nntp-Posting-Host: riesz
 
Here's a birthday puzzle I recently heard on PBS.  I hope the rec.puzzle
crowd forgives me if this old hat to them.  (I just recently tuned into
rec.puzzles and was amused to find that some of my information on the
Voynich Ms. had found its way into the FAQ there!)
 
Two twins (the usual number) celebrated their birthdays one year, and it
was rather unusual in that one celebrated his birthday two days before
the other!  What's more, the younger one celebrated his birthday first!
How did this happen?


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 26-OCT-1992 11:02:19.20
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	b-day puzz ans

Xref: news.tufts.edu sci.math:13187 rec.puzzles:3537
Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!haven.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!mojo.eng.umd.edu!russotto
From: russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto)
Newsgroups: sci.math,rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Another sort of birthday puzzle
Message-ID: <1992Oct24.211256.27129@eng.umd.edu>
Date: 24 Oct 92 21:12:56 GMT
References: <6016@tuegate.tue.nl> <Oct.24.05.17.13.1992.22443@remus.rutgers.edu> <1992Oct24.183017.13325@galois.mit.edu>
Organization: College of Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 21
 
In article <1992Oct24.183017.13325@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:
 
>Two twins (the usual number) celebrated their birthdays one year, and it
>was rather unusual in that one celebrated his birthday two days before
>the other!  What's more, the younger one celebrated his birthday first!
>How did this happen?
 
They crossed the International Date line and the 12:00 midnight line
flying west between the birth of the two twins.  i.e. twin 1 was
born at 12:01 on Friday.  They crossed the midnight line, which made
it 11:59 on Thursday.  They then crossed the date line, making it
Wednesday.  Then the second twin was born, some minutes later
according to duration, but one day and several minutes earlier
according to clock time.
 
 
-- 
Matthew T. Russotto	russotto@eng.umd.edu	russotto@wam.umd.edu
Some news readers expect "Disclaimer:" here.
Just say NO to police searches and seizures.  Make them use force.
(not responsible for bodily harm resulting from following above advice)


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 26-OCT-1992 11:08:59.84
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	b-day puzz ans

Xref: news.tufts.edu sci.math:13208 rec.puzzles:3544
Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!purdue!haven.umd.edu!uunet!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!nntp-server.caltech.edu!rmjarvis
From: rmjarvis@cco.caltech.edu (Robert Michael Jarvis)
Newsgroups: sci.math,rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Another sort of birthday puzzle
Message-ID: <1cdppjINN4bf@gap.caltech.edu>
Date: 25 Oct 92 09:35:47 GMT
References: <Oct.24.05.17.13.1992.22443@remus.rutgers.edu> <1992Oct24.183017.13325@galois.mit.edu> <1992Oct24.211256.27129@eng.umd.edu>
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In article <1992Oct24.211256.27129@eng.umd.edu> russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) writes:
>They crossed the International Date line and the 12:00 midnight line
>flying west between the birth of the two twins.  i.e. twin 1 was
>born at 12:01 on Friday.  They crossed the midnight line, which made
>it 11:59 on Thursday.  They then crossed the date line, making it
>Wednesday.  Then the second twin was born, some minutes later
>according to duration, but one day and several minutes earlier
>according to clock time.
 
Actually, it is possible to get another day's difference in there.  If the 
first twin was born at 12:01 Friday, March 1, and the second twin was
born at 11:59 on Thursday, February 28, then every four years (except for
the obvious exceptions) they would celebrate their birthdays 3 days apart, 
since there would be an extra day in between.  Namely February 29.
 
 
Mike.


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 26-OCT-1992 11:09:53.70
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	ladder puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!newsaintmail
From: matt@severian.chi.il.us (Matt Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Cliff Puzzle 13: Ladders to Heaven
Message-ID: <NFHM1HYV#@linac.fnal.gov>
Date: 25 Oct 92 17:28:28 GMT
References: <1992Oct23.193252.108077@watson.ibm.com>
Sender: daemon@linac.fnal.gov (The Background Man)
Organization: The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny
Lines: 33
Nntp-Posting-Host: severian.chi.il.us
 
>1.  Approximate how long it would take a person (or team of people) to
>reach the top of the ladder.  Days?  Weeks?  Years?
 
Note that after you're 22,300 miles from the earth's axis, you get to
"fall" the rest of the way, as long as you don't lose contact with
the ladder.
	
>2. Which country would be the first?
 
It has already been pointed out that countries on the equator have an
advantage.  I suppose you could consider that countries with a large
national debt have extra motivation.  :-)
 
>3. Is there any novel method you would suggest to achieve this goal?
 
I would suggest a bicycle-like vehicle clamped to the ladder.  By
pulling a light but strong rope on a pulley (perhaps obtained form
the same source as this fantastic ladder material), riders could be
changed fairly quickly, thanks to a crew of brawny pulley-pullers
with a variable-geared linkage to the rope.
 
For the rider to pull this ever-longer rope seems impossible, but I
think shorter segments could be lifted and linked.  Or the ground
crew could help the rider by pulling down rope from a hub of lesser
diameter than the wheels of the vehicle.
 
>4. Is this task impossible to carry out.
 
No.  I thought it might be impossible to halt at the far end of the
ladder and return, due to centrifugal acceleration, but that
acceleration turns out to be only about 5 cm/s^2.
__________________________________________________________
Matt Crawford       matt@severian.chi.il.us       Java Man








Two men were having lunch when they spied their respective wives across the
street from where they ate. After paying the tab, they steped across the 
street to greet them. Suddenly, a truck came racing around the corner, striking
one of the men. The hapless fellow realized he was dying, but before succumbing,
he pulled a revolver from his bloody jacket and shot his lunch companion to
death.
How come?
Paul S. Hoffman			           INTERNET: phoffman@crcvms.unl.edu
(402) 471-2045  fax: (402) 471-2083        "Solvitar Ambulando"
------------------------------------------------------

In article <BvnL1u.pC@math.uwaterloo.ca> tjdonald@neumann.uwaterloo.ca () writes:
>1. On the island of knights and knaves, knights always tell the truth and
>   knaves always lie; and any person on the island is either a knight or a
>   a knave. It seems that a native of the island named Bob was suffering from
>   a particularly rare form of amnesia. It's a fact that Bob owned a total
>   of ten pets, all cats and dogs. It is also a fact he had more cats than
>   dogs. Luckily for Bob, his confusion was cleared up when his friend his
>   friend Marie came by and said "Either you have nine cats and one dog, or
>   you have an even number of both pets." Since Bob knew Marie's type (ie.
>   whether she was a knight or a knave), he figured out how many pets he
>   had right away. So the question is: How many cats does Bob own?
 
7 cats and 3 dogs
and Marie was a knave (liar)>
>
>2. There are two doors, 1 and 2, and only one leads to the grand prize (a
>   dump truck full of twinkies). You possess two keys, gold and silver, and
>   only one opens the door that leads to the twinkies. Here are three
>   statements:
>
>     i. The silver key opens the door that leads to the twinkies.
>    ii. The gold key opens door 2.
>   iii. Door 1 leads to the twinkies.
>
>   Unfortunately, you don't know which of these statements are true and
>   which are false.
>
>   I told Dr. Rocket everything I've just told you. Unable to solve the
>   problem, Dr. Rocket asked me if there more true statements than false
>   statements among i-iii. After I responded (with the correct answer, of
>   course!), the good doctor was still unable to solve the problem. As
>   another hint, I told Dr. Rocket the truth value of one of the statements
>   (although I forget which one) - and almost before I finished speaking
>   the doctor blurted out the correct solution. Can you determine: 1) Which
>   door leads to the twinkies, and 2) Which key opens that door?
>
???? is there a solution?
------------------------------------------------------------

a freighter was to carry a shipment of ball bearings to a bicycle plant down
the river.  The captain of the ship noted the volume of his hold and the
density of steel (what the bearings were made of, of course).  He then told the
guy loading the ship to only fill the ship three quarters full, lest the ship
sink under the weight of the bearings.  The loader thought about this for a
moment and told the captain not to worry.  Despite the captain's objections, he
loaded the holds to their maximums. Low and behold, the ship did not sink and
everyone lived happily ever after (especially the captain who moved more
bearings than he expected, making a large bonus).
What did the loader know?
enjoy,
lee
-------------------------------------------------------------
 
n article <1992Oct6.020647.4651@ils.nwu.edu>, blum@news.ils.nwu.edu (Daniel Blum) writes:
>    Given an infinitely long rectangular strip which is two units wide,
> and circles with diameters of one unit, one can pack them in parallel
> rows of two, like so:
>                       _____________________________
>                       |oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...
>                       |oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...
>                       -----------------------------
> However, there is a more efficient packing.  What is it?
> 
> Unfortunately, I left the company before the solution was given, and
> as fas as _I_ can see, there is no solution.  Any ideas?  
 
I can see a way to achieve a density of
 
6 / (sqrt (4 sqrt (3) - 3) + 1) = 2.012
 
circles per unit of strip length, which beats the parallel
row packing by a little bit.  Here's how:
 
Start with a two strips of a hexagonal close packing:
 
----------------
| O O O O O O O 
|O O O O O O O O
----------------
(It's hard to do this kind of diagram in ascii. Imagine that the
 typical circle above is touching four neighbors)
 
Now, notice that although the packing density is just as good (2.0) as the
rectangular parallel row packing, there is now a good deal of play, because
our packing strip is 2.0 units wide, but we are only need a width of
1 + sqrt (3) / 2 (= 1.866) units for our two strips.
 
So we'll do the following:
 
----------------
| O * * O * * O 
|O O * O O * O O
----------------
 
Let's call groups of three mutually adjacent circles marked with O and * as
shown above triangles.  We will now shift each triangle as a fixed unit. 
Push all the O triangles down so that they are flush with the bottom of the
packing strip, and all the * triangles up so they are flush with the top of
the strip.  Now there will be small gaps between adjacent triangles, and we
can shift all the triangles to left a bit to close these gaps and boost the
packing density up to 2.016 (you can do the math yourself)

Guy Jacobson   (908) 582-6558              AT&T Bell Laboratories
        uucp:  {att,ucbvax}!ulysses!guy	   600 Mountain Avenue
    internet:  guy@ulysses.att.com         Murray Hill NJ, 07974
---------------------------------------------------------------
> Dear puzzlers,
|> 
|>      I have a puzzle at my house called "Teez Brainbuster".  It consists of 
|> nine holes in a block of plastic, all lined up.  The initial setup of the 
|> puzzle consists of four blue pegs in holes #1 thru #4 and four red pegs in 
|> holes #6 thru #9, like this:
|> 
|>          B B B B O R R R R
|> 
|> where B = blue peg
|>       R = red peg
|>  and  O = empty hole
|> 
|> The object is to switch the positions of the blue and red pegs, i.e.,
|> 
|>         R R R R O B B B B 
|> 
|> The allowable moves are: 
|>   a) move one blue peg into an adjacent empty hole
|>   b) move one red peg into an adjacent empty hole
|>   c) a peg may "jump" over one (and only one) peg of either color, provided 
|> that the hole that the peg "jumps" into is empty 
|>   d) blue pegs can only be moved to the right; red pegs can only be moved to 
|> the left
|> 
|>      The solution is NOT to turn the plastic block around 180 degrees. :-)
|> 
|>      Normally I'm all right at puzzles, but I can't figure this one out.  I 
|> didn't see it in the FAQ, so here it is.  Has anybody got the solution handy?  
|> If so, are my rules (for allowable moves) incorrect?
|> 
|> Thanks in advance,
|> 
|> Gene Huh
|> huh@wccf.mit.edu  or  huh@mitwccf
 
The solution to your puzzle is as follows:
 
1. RRRR0BBBB     
2. RRRRB0BBB
3. RRR0BRBBB
4. RR0RBRBBB
5. RRBR0RBBB
6. RRBRBR0BB
7. RRBRBRB0B
8. RRBRB0BRB
9. RRB0BRBRB
10 R0BRBRBRB
11 0RBRBRBRB
12 BR0RBRBRB
13 BRBR0RBRB
14 BRBRBR0RB
15 BRBRBRBR0
16 BRBRBRB0R
17 BRBRB0BRR
18 BRB0BRBRR
19 B0BRBRBRR
20 BB0RBRBRR
21 BBBR0RBRR
22 BBBRBR0RR
23 BBBRB0RRR
24 BBB0BRRRR
25 BBBB0RRRR                       QED

-------------------------------------------------------------
William Shakespeare -- anagrams
********************************
  1.  Mikhail was a sleeper.
  2.  Raisa: "We'll keep Misha!"
  3.  Premise: Allah is weak.
  4.  Shall I sweep Amerika?
  5.  We like A.A.! <sharp smile>
  6.  We'll make Asia perish!
  7.  I saw Shea kill Ampere!
  8.  I impale a lesser hawk.
  9.  A simple hiker saw ale.
 10.  I sear Ike's whale lamp.
 11.  Imp Law: raise a shekel.
 12.  Heim's Law: lase a piker!
 13.  Simile: We "Hep" as a lark.
-------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------

In article <1992Oct9.111838.1@ntuvax> sb102760@ntuvax writes:
>In article <int470u.718541096@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au>, int470u@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au (Wes Jones) writes:
>> This is a puzzle my maths teacher asked back in high school:
>> 
>> A mathematician and a magician were walking down the road together.
>> The logician turned to the mathematician, and said, "The sum of the
>> ages of my three children, which can be considered integers, is 13,
>> and the product is the number on that bus over there.  What are the
>> ages?"
>> 
>> The mathematician, after some thought, replied that he did not have
>> enough information to solve the problem.  The logician then said that
>> his oldest child was learning to play the piano.  The mathematician
>> then told the logician the ages.
>> 
>> What are the ages ?
>
>	Would I need to know the number of the bus, or at least the
>	kind of number buses have in wherever the location of the
>	story is ?
 
Nop.  There are limited possible combinations of ages of the children
(e.g., no kid can be older than 11, assuming all kids are at least 1).
Only two combinations give the same products.  The piano lesson hint
eliminates one.  Answer is:

Ages: 9, 2, 2
--------------------------------------------------------






 
Ages: 9, 2, 2
                                                                               
1.  Given a large ark containing 2 individuals of every animal species          
in the world, what would be the approximate total weight of all the             
organisms?  How would your answer differ if you included every plant,           
bacterial, and fungal organism?                                                 
                                                                                
2.  Assume that all other organisms on earth were dead except for those         
on the ark in question 1, and that the animals were released 1000 years         
ago.  What would you expect to be surviving today?  (Assume that, where         
applicable, a male and female were used for each species.)                      
                                                                                
3.  Assume that the year is 1992 and that it rained for 40 days, and the        
rain covered all the land on the earth.  Further assume that the flood          
waters receded to pre-flood days within several months.                         
                                                                                
   What would be the geopolitical changes as a result of the                    
temporary flood?                                                                
                                                                                
   What would be the ecological changes as a result of the                      
temporary flood?                                                                
---------------------------------------------------------

here are three guys there, and each either always
tells the truth or always lies.  You don't know
how many are liars and you don't know who's lying.
 
The question is:
 
What is the one question you must ask one of the guys
in order to determine which path to take ????
 
please email   at   swindley@s1.elec.uq.oz.au
---------------------------------------------------------------

  Many interesting observations have recently been published                   
concerning various number theory properties of the "number of the               
beast", 666.  In this new puzzle here I ask you to consider the monstrous                                 
"leviathan number", a number so large as to make the number of electrons,                
protons, and neutrons in the universe (10**79) pale in comparison.  (It         
also makes a googol (10**100) look kind of small).                              
                                                                                
The leviathan number is defined as (10**666)!, where the "!" indicates          
factorial.                                                                      
                                                                                
1.  What are the first 6 digits of the leviathan number?  Hint:  you            
need not actually compute the leviathan to determine this.  If you can          
determine the first 6 digits, please carefully spell out your method.           
                                                                                
2. Could modern supercomputers compute the leviathan, or will this              
beyond the realm of humankind for the next century?                             
                                                                                
3. Even if we cannot compute the leviathan, how many other                      
characteristics of this number can we write down.                               
--------------------------------------------------------------  
> The leviathan number is defined as (10**666)!, where the "!" indicates
> factorial.
 
> 1.  What are the first 6 digits of the leviathan number?
 
The simplest technique would be to use Stirling's formula to compute
the mantissa, i.e. frac( log(n) ) = frac( log(2*pi)/2 + log(n)/2
n*(log(n)-log(e)) ).  In our case n = 10^666, so this equals
frac( log(2*pi)/2 + 333 + 10^666*(666-log(e)) ) =
frac( log(2*pi)/2 + 10^666*(1-log(e)) ), so we'd basically need
to know something like 10 digits to the right of the decimal point
for log(2*pi)/2, and something like 700 digits for log(e) (which is
easily doable).  We then compute (1-log(e)), shift the digits 666
spaces to the left, and we're all set.
 
> 2. Could modern supercomputers compute the leviathan, or will this
> beyond the realm of humankind for the next century?
 
The number of digits is more than 10^668, and this compares
unfavorably to the number of particles in the universe.  Furthermore,
even if a googol digits could be output per second, you'd never
make it before the end of the universe.  So, I'd say it's beyond
the realm of humanity, period.
 
> 3. Even if we cannot compute the leviathan, how many other
> characteristics of this number can we write down.
 
As another puzzle, how many zeroes does it end with, and what are
the last two non-zero digits?
-- 
Chris Long, 265 Old York Rd., Bridgewater, NJ  08807-2618
------------------------------------------------------------

Heres a simple puzzle I just came up with (by solving it):
 
How can you boil water with an ice cube?

        Someone wake me when it's over" | rogerj@rpi.edu
---------------------------------------------------------------

>How can you boil water with an ice cube?
 
make a lens out of the ice cube and focus sunlight onto
the water?  (probably easier with cloudy or dyed water,
the better to absorb the light)
 
--Noam D. Elkies (elkies@zariski.harvard.edu)
> >How can you boil water with an ice cube?
> >-- 
 
> If memory serves me correctly, you must heat the water to boiling inside
> some kind of closeable container, and close it, so that pressure builds
> inside the container.  Then by cooling the container down quickly (such
> as with an ice cube), the steam will condense and the pressure will be
> lowered so that the water must let off steam, or "boil", in order to
> maintain an equilibrium.  I may be wrong about this, because I'm trying
> to think back over many years to remember where I saw this done.
>
> Kristofor A. Varhus	OK, I know, I don't have a very impressive sig.
> 			Hey, I'm working on it!
 
 
You are correct!!!!  I know this because I recently saw this very thing done on
'Mr. Wizard's World'!!!!! ;^)  Heh Heh... 
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
No, I guess I wasn't. But I did it by accident, not even trying to. I was
nukeing some vegetables, and then took the container out of the microwave
with the cover (which had popped off) still laying on top of it. The kitchen
was kinda cool, and I noticed the cover getting sucked in. When I looked
closely, I saw bubbles forming in the water, and remembered (high school
chem here) that water boils at cooler temperatures in lower pressure. And I
thought "Aha! rec.puzzles material here!"
---------------------------------------------------------                                                                               
Consider a metallic slide with 10 large holes in it equally spaced from         
top to bottom.  If you attempt to slide down the slide you have a 50%           
probability of sliding through each hole in the slide into an oleaginous        
substance beneath the slide during each encounter with a hole.                  
                                                                                
1.  If you were a gambling person, which hole would you bet a person            
would fall through?                                                             
                                                                                
2.  If you were a gambling person, how many attempts would it require           
for a person to slide from the top of the slide to the bottom without           
falling through a single hole.                                                  
                                                                                
3.  If all the people on earth lined up to go down the slide, and they          
slid down a more horrifying slide with 100 holes at a rate of 1 person          
per second, when would you expect the first person to arrive at the             
bottom of the slide without falling through.                                    
An hour? A day? A decade? ...                                                   
-------------------------------------------------------------
From: cliff@watson.ibm.com (cliff)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Cliff Puzzle 13: Ladders to Heaven
Title: Cliff Puzzle 13: Ladders to Heaven                                       
From: cliff@watson.ibm.com                                                      
                                                                                
If you respond to this puzzle, if possible please send me your name,            
address, affiliation, e-mail address, so I can properly credit you if           
you provide unique information.  PLEASE ALSO directly mail me a copy of         
your response in addition to any responding you do in the newsgroup.  I         
will assume it is OK to describe your answer in any article or                  
publication I may write in the future, with attribution to you, unless          
you state otherwise.  Thanks, Cliff Pickover                                    

Consider the following scenario.  A standard ladder stretches from each         
country on the earth upward a distance equal to the distance from the           
earth to the moon.                                                              
                                                                                
Assume:                                                                         
1. the ladder is made out of a strong metal such as                             
titanium, which will not break.                                                 
2. the ladder is inclined at a very steep angle, 70 degrees, for                
each country.                                                                   
3. there is a breathable atmosphere.                                            
4. the people (or teams of people) are allowed to use standard                  
mountain climbing and camping gear, e.g. ropes, backpacks, etc. but not         
sophisticated electrical mechanisms, engines, etc.                              
5. a reward is given to whomever reaches the top of the ladder                  
first: 1 million dollars to that person.  In addition the country's             
national debt is wiped out.                                                     
                                                                                
Questions:                                                                      
1.  Approximate how long it would take a person (or team of people) to          
reach the top of the ladder.  Days?  Weeks?  Years?                             
                                                                                
2. Which country would be the first?                                            
                                                                                
3. Is there any novel method you would suggest to achieve this goal?            
                                                                                
4. Is this task impossible to carry out.                                        
-----------------------------------------------------------------
  The moon has a mean distance of 3.48*10^8 meters from the earth.
 Your question does not explicitly state whether we are to attain that
distance above the earth, or along the length of the ladder.  I will assume
for simplicity that the ladder is merely 3.5*10^8 meters long.
 
  A million dollars does not mean diddly, considering the task at hand.
It is not clear who would "erase the national debt", so that seems a bit
silly.  I will assume though that these guys will race like madmen to get
to the top.  Presumably there will be a whole crew, some "leading" and
some providing support, food, and other such necessities.  Ropes could
be arranged in a pully system with men at the "intersections" who would
attach and detach packages.  Waste packages would be sent down from above,
attached to the top of a particular rope pulley system, and a new package
would be attached to the bottom.  The man running the pully would account
for the difference in the weight (contributing his strength to pull the
presumably slightly heavier new packages upwards)
 
  Here, I will totally guess.  A person could probably climb at least
10,000 feet in a day, in very good shape.  (I personally climbed that
far in a single day in the grand canyon, but barely made it, let alone day
after day)  So lets say this professional is 3 times as good, and travels
10,000 meters... whew!  This leaves 3.4*10^4 days for the job, or at least
93 years!  Clearly, we will have to have teams trade off, for the first 
teams will be dead by the time they get to the top.  Pregnant women will
have to climb along too to provide new climbers!
 
  I am not sure the rope pully system above would work so great, considering
how massive an undertaking this is.  I will bet that my estimate above
is way off, by at least a factor of 2.  Therefore, maybe it could be done
in a single life time.  However the task of providing food and supplies
is not trivial, this is the major bottleneck probably.  If you had one
person staged every 10 kilometers that means still a population of 30,000
to feed, just as a support staff!  This could be reduced way down by
allowing air support to provide food.  The only realistic way it could be
done would be to have people growing food on different levels in
communities, which then function to pass food and needed supplied upwards.
 
Imagine trying to feed 30,000 people distributed at 10 kilometers over
a thin ladder!  It would be hard enough to feed that many people, let
alone passing it along only one route.  Major distribution problem.  If
each person ate only 0.06lb per day, this would still be a TON of food
which would have to be passed up... impossible for a single human to move
a TON of food 10 kilometers upwards by themselves in a single day, even
with the waste product scenerio above..
It appears as if you MUST have communities living at different heights,
collecting rain water and growing their own food.
 
I would bet that this task would NOT be undertaken, unless it were a command
from God.  There is a story about this very concept, where a civilization
builds a tower into "heaven" above, I can't remember where I read it but
it was pretty cool.  A sci-fi version of Babel.  They reach the top, and
it is a shell which they drill through.... I'll let you read it to find
out what was on the other side.
----------------------------------------------------------
From: clong@remus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long)

> How many people live in my town (excluding the leap birthdays)?
 
Use inclusion-exclusion to get that for n people p(n) = \sum_{i=0}^n
(-1)^i * (365 C i) * (1 - i/365)^n.  We can approximate (1 - i/365)^n
by e^{i*n/365} and so p ~ \sum_{i=0}^n (365 C i) * (-e^{n/365})^i =
(1 - e^{n/365})^n.  An easy calculation gives that p(n) first exceeds
1/2 when n=2288, and this should be quite accurate, but I'll check
when I have the time.
 
Let me tell you about the town I'm from.  In this town no worker
has any weekends or holidays off, except if another worker has
a birthday, then everyone has off.  Luckily for productivity, the
number of workers is such that the expected number of worker-days
is maximized.  How many people work in my town, ignoring leap days?
-- 
Chris Long, 265 Old York Rd., Bridgewater, NJ  08807-2618
----------------------------------------------------------------
Subj:	slide puzz ans
From: clong@remus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long)

> Consider a metallic slide with 10 large holes in it equally spaced from
> top to bottom.  If you attempt to slide down the slide you have a 50%
> probability of sliding through each hole in the slide into an oleaginous
> substance beneath the slide during each encounter with a hole.
 
> 1.  If you were a gambling person, which hole would you bet a person
> would fall through?
 
The probability of falling into hole i is (1/2)^i, so your best bet
would be hole 1.
 
> 2.  If you were a gambling person, how many attempts would it require
> for a person to slide from the top of the slide to the bottom without
> falling through a single hole.
 
The probability of success is p = (1/2)^10, and as each trial is
independant the expected number of trials before success is 1/p or
2^10.
 
> 3.  If all the people on earth lined up to go down the slide, and they
> slid down a more horrifying slide with 100 holes at a rate of 1 person
> per second, when would you expect the first person to arrive at the
> bottom of the slide without falling through.
 
In this case the number of expected trials is 2^100, which is much
larger than the total number of people.
 
> An hour? A day? A decade? ...
 
Try about 10^24 years.  As another problem, assuming a large enough
supply of sliders estimate when the slide will wear through from
friction.
-- 
Chris Long, 265 Old York Rd., Bridgewater, NJ  08807-2618
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Subj:	b-day puzz
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)

Here's a birthday puzzle I recently heard on PBS.  I hope the rec.puzzle
crowd forgives me if this old hat to them.  (I just recently tuned into
rec.puzzles and was amused to find that some of my information on the
Voynich Ms. had found its way into the FAQ there!)
 
Two twins (the usual number) celebrated their birthdays one year, and it
was rather unusual in that one celebrated his birthday two days before
the other!  What's more, the younger one celebrated his birthday first!
How did this happen?
----------------------------------------------------------------
 
In article <1992Oct24.211256.27129@eng.umd.edu> russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) writes:
>They crossed the International Date line and the 12:00 midnight line
>flying west between the birth of the two twins.  i.e. twin 1 was
>born at 12:01 on Friday.  They crossed the midnight line, which made
>it 11:59 on Thursday.  They then crossed the date line, making it
>Wednesday.  Then the second twin was born, some minutes later
>according to duration, but one day and several minutes earlier
>according to clock time.
 
Actually, it is possible to get another day's difference in there.  If the 
first twin was born at 12:01 Friday, March 1, and the second twin was
born at 11:59 on Thursday, February 28, then every four years (except for
the obvious exceptions) they would celebrate their birthdays 3 days apart, 
since there would be an extra day in between.  Namely February 29.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Subj:	ladder puzz
From: matt@severian.chi.il.us (Matt Crawford)
 
>1.  Approximate how long it would take a person (or team of people) to
>reach the top of the ladder.  Days?  Weeks?  Years?
 
Note that after you're 22,300 miles from the earth's axis, you get to
"fall" the rest of the way, as long as you don't lose contact with
the ladder.
	
>2. Which country would be the first?
 
It has already been pointed out that countries on the equator have an
advantage.  I suppose you could consider that countries with a large
national debt have extra motivation.  :-)
 
>3. Is there any novel method you would suggest to achieve this goal?
 
I would suggest a bicycle-like vehicle clamped to the ladder.  By
pulling a light but strong rope on a pulley (perhaps obtained form
the same source as this fantastic ladder material), riders could be
changed fairly quickly, thanks to a crew of brawny pulley-pullers
with a variable-geared linkage to the rope.
 
For the rider to pull this ever-longer rope seems impossible, but I
think shorter segments could be lifted and linked.  Or the ground
crew could help the rider by pulling down rope from a hub of lesser
diameter than the wheels of the vehicle.
 
>4. Is this task impossible to carry out.
 
No.  I thought it might be impossible to halt at the far end of the
ladder and return, due to centrifugal acceleration, but that
acceleration turns out to be only about 5 cm/s^2.
__________________________________________________________
Matt Crawford       matt@severian.chi.il.us       Java Man











From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 28-OCT-1992 13:55:10.68
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	puzz b-day ans

Xref: news.tufts.edu sci.math:13260 rec.puzzles:3555
Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!sunic!ugle.unit.no!nuug!nntp.nta.no!hal.nta.no!stein
From: stein@hal.nta.no (Stein Kulseth FBA)
Newsgroups: sci.math,rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Another sort of birthday puzzle
Message-ID: <1992Oct26.163447.389@nntp.nta.no>
Date: 26 Oct 92 16:34:47 GMT
References: <1992Oct24.183017.13325@galois.mit.edu> <1992Oct24.211256.27129@eng.umd.edu> <1cdppjINN4bf@gap.caltech.edu> <1992Oct25.210105.21723@galois.mit.edu>
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Nntp-Posting-Host: elvis.nta.no
 
In article <1992Oct25.210105.21723@galois.mit.edu>, jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:
|> Mike has given the solution I was looking for.  I said that the younger
|> one celebrated his birthday two days earlier than the older.  February
|> 28th is two days before March 1 if it's a leap year... at least
|> according to how I count.  (I wouldn't say those days are 3 days apart.)
|> And yes, one gets this by a combination of international date line and
|> leap year trickery.  
 
But you could still get a three day difference if they celebrate their birthdays
on an ocean liner:
Day 0: The youngest twin celebrates his birthday (Feb 28)
Day 1: No birthday (Feb 29)
Day 2: Still no birthday (Still Feb 29, they crossed the date line)
Day 3: The eldest twin celebrates his birthday (Mar 1, at last)
 
-- 
stein.kulseth@nta.no (Norwegian Telecom Research)
   'When murders are committed by mathematics, they can be solved by
   mathematics. Most of them aren't, and this one wasn't'
   - Nick Charles (Dashiell Hammett's "The Thin Man")


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 28-OCT-1992 13:59:46.12
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	geological puzz ans

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!uwm.edu!caen!hellgate.utah.edu!asylum.cs.utah.edu!tolman
From: tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re:  Cliff Puzzle 14: Geography Genuflection
Message-ID: <1992Oct26.142146.26676@hellgate.utah.edu>
Date: 26 Oct 92 21:21:45 GMT
References: <1992Oct26.140330.142282@watson.ibm.com>
Organization: University of Utah, CompSci Dept
Lines: 47
 
Edit your files, so that there are not blanks at the end of each line.
 
>1.  How would the world be different today, geopolitically speaking, if   
>the ancient land masses had never drifted apart and, therefore,        
>today's world consisted of a single supercontintent?                 
 
  Judging from what I know of climates, there needs to be some ocean nearby
(relatively) or you will be unable to raise crops.  Even the US, very large
gets water on its interior, but I do not believe the USSR gets water on
all of its regions.  Therefore, a huge land mass would have a higher
percentage of desert and less arable land.
  Such a land mass would be geopolitically unstable because all countries
would have borders.  This period of infighting would have remained vigorous
for longer, until some ruler managed to capture the entire land mass, as
Hitler intended to do.   These captured states would then have broken apart
as the empire decayed.  I predict that the period of technological advance
would have been shortened due to the intense inter-country activity, and
that at this current year we would have had space stations already in orbit,
along with the techniques to prevent aging.
 
>2.  What would today's world be like if the land mass which formed the
>Greek peninsula never existed?                                   
 
Presumably, the greeks would have lived elsewhere.
 
>3.  What would today's world be like if the land bridge which joined 
>Alaska to Asia never existed?                                           
 
The native americans would have never arrived, and therefore the accumulated
Gold of the Incas would not have existed.  Colonization of the America's
would have taken longer with less incentive by 100 years.  There would
have been no revolution, for the country would have been smaller and
not have had the balls to revolt so early.  England would have relaxed control
as it did on its other provinces without a fight, and our countries beginning
would have been less dramatic.   There would be no need for social remorse
as it exists today, and the capitol of America would be located in
Greensburg, Iowa.
 
>4.  Why do all the major peninsulas on earth point south?  See for      
>example:  Italy, Greece, Florida, and Baja, and the tips of Africa,      
>South America, India, Norway, Sweden, Greenland, and many other            
>landmasses. 
 
This is due to coincidence, and is contributed to by the fact that the
ice caps are due north and due south.  The ice caps generate cooler water
which form circular convection currents with the equator, making a massive
erosion that forms north south protusions.  Alaska will soon wear off.


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 28-OCT-1992 14:05:43.24
To:	root puzz
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	 

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wupost!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!xn.ll.mit.edu!ll.mit.edu!shoham
From: shoham@ll.mit.edu (Daniel Shoham)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: New puzzles
Message-ID: <1992Oct27.064128.5682@ll.mit.edu>
Date: 27 Oct 92 06:41:28 GMT
References: <1992Oct26.173848.5464@hellgate.utah.edu>
Sender: news@ll.mit.edu
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Lines: 36
 
In article <1992Oct26.173848.5464@hellgate.utah.edu> tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) writes:
>There should be more original puzzles appearing here.  Why aren't there more?
>
 
Ok, here is an original puzzle that I made up some years ago for a class:
 
Consider the following curio:
   _____            ____
 \/ 3375    =   3 \/ 375
 
(where part of a number was "pulled" out of the SQR sign)
 
Are there any other such examples?
(you may take out multiple digits - in order i.e. [abcde]^.5 = ab[cde]^.5)
 
Are there examples for higher order roots (like cube roots, etc.)
 
Can you prove you found all solutions?
 
Hint: there is exactly one solution (in addition to the example above) for
Square roots, and exactly one additional solution for higher order roots.
 
- The proof for odd roots (cube, etc.) is non-trivial. Otherwise, no knowlege
of number theory (beside the uniqueness of prime-decomposition) or other
advanced mathematics is needed.
 
FOR the nitpickers: 33750, 337500, .. and any other solutions multipled by 10^n
don't count. Also, as if it needs mention, only Integer solutions.
 
- Dan Shoham
shoham@ll.mit.edu
 
P.S. As far as I know this puzzle is original, but not being very knowledgeable
in the field, I could be wrong. If I am wrong - my apologies to the anyone who
have independently posed this problem. (please let me know - so I won't
continue to claim originality)


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 28-OCT-1992 14:05:59.88
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	root puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wupost!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!xn.ll.mit.edu!ll.mit.edu!shoham
From: shoham@ll.mit.edu (Daniel Shoham)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: New puzzles
Message-ID: <1992Oct27.064128.5682@ll.mit.edu>
Date: 27 Oct 92 06:41:28 GMT
References: <1992Oct26.173848.5464@hellgate.utah.edu>
Sender: news@ll.mit.edu
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Lines: 36
 
In article <1992Oct26.173848.5464@hellgate.utah.edu> tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) writes:
>There should be more original puzzles appearing here.  Why aren't there more?
>
 
Ok, here is an original puzzle that I made up some years ago for a class:
 
Consider the following curio:
   _____            ____
 \/ 3375    =   3 \/ 375
 
(where part of a number was "pulled" out of the SQR sign)
 
Are there any other such examples?
(you may take out multiple digits - in order i.e. [abcde]^.5 = ab[cde]^.5)
 
Are there examples for higher order roots (like cube roots, etc.)
 
Can you prove you found all solutions?
 
Hint: there is exactly one solution (in addition to the example above) for
Square roots, and exactly one additional solution for higher order roots.
 
- The proof for odd roots (cube, etc.) is non-trivial. Otherwise, no knowlege
of number theory (beside the uniqueness of prime-decomposition) or other
advanced mathematics is needed.
 
FOR the nitpickers: 33750, 337500, .. and any other solutions multipled by 10^n
don't count. Also, as if it needs mention, only Integer solutions.
 
- Dan Shoham
shoham@ll.mit.edu
 
P.S. As far as I know this puzzle is original, but not being very knowledgeable
in the field, I could be wrong. If I am wrong - my apologies to the anyone who
have independently posed this problem. (please let me know - so I won't
continue to claim originality)


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 28-OCT-1992 14:07:11.48
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	root puzz ans

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!udel!louie!albert.udel.edu!ajit
From: ajit@albert.udel.edu (Ajit Thyagarajan)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: New puzzles
Message-ID: <1992Oct27.153817.28387@udel.edu>
Date: 27 Oct 92 15:38:17 GMT
References: <1992Oct26.173848.5464@hellgate.utah.edu> <1992Oct27.064128.5682@ll.mit.edu>
Sender: usenet@udel.edu (USENET News Service)
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Lines: 54
Nntp-Posting-Host: albert.udel.edu
 
In article <1992Oct27.064128.5682@ll.mit.edu>, shoham@ll.mit.edu (Daniel Shoham) writes:
|> In article <1992Oct26.173848.5464@hellgate.utah.edu> tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) writes:
|> >There should be more original puzzles appearing here.  Why aren't there more?
|> >
|> 
|> Ok, here is an original puzzle that I made up some years ago for a class:
|> 
|> Consider the following curio:
|>    _____            ____
|>  \/ 3375    =   3 \/ 375
|> 
|> (where part of a number was "pulled" out of the SQR sign)
|> 
|> Are there any other such examples?
|> (you may take out multiple digits - in order i.e. [abcde]^.5 = ab[cde]^.5)
|> 
 
	One other example is 9 (1125)^.5
	The proof is quite simple and yes, it does involve the basics of 		          factorization. I will leave it out for the time being in case anyone else         wants to post solutions!
 
	There are no solutions for multiple digits - follows from the proof!
 
|> Are there examples for higher order roots (like cube roots, etc.)
|> 
 
	I am bowled here. I could not find any other solution for higher order            roots. I am wondering if there are actually any other solutions?? I am            waiting to be proved wrong.
 
|> Can you prove you found all solutions?
|> 
|> Hint: there is exactly one solution (in addition to the example above) for
|> Square roots, and exactly one additional solution for higher order roots.
|> 
|> - The proof for odd roots (cube, etc.) is non-trivial. Otherwise, no knowlege
|> of number theory (beside the uniqueness of prime-decomposition) or other
|> advanced mathematics is needed.
|> 
	Quite true.
 
|> FOR the nitpickers: 33750, 337500, .. and any other solutions multipled by 10^n
|> don't count. Also, as if it needs mention, only Integer solutions.
|> 
|> - Dan Shoham
|> shoham@ll.mit.edu
|> 
|> P.S. As far as I know this puzzle is original, but not being very knowledgeable
|> in the field, I could be wrong. If I am wrong - my apologies to the anyone who
|> have independently posed this problem. (please let me know - so I won't
|> continue to claim originality)
 
	Nice problem, Dan.
 
	Keep it coming.
 
Ajit


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 28-OCT-1992 14:08:47.21
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	swimming pool puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!aio!gepr02!nas_ps
From: nas_ps@jsc.nasa.gov (Pradip R. Shah)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Swimming Pool
Message-ID: <1992Oct27.212150.4154@aio.jsc.nasa.gov>
Date: 27 Oct 92 21:21:50 GMT
Sender: news@aio.jsc.nasa.gov (USENET News System)
Reply-To: nas_ps@jsc.nasa.gov
Organization: G.E. Government Services
Lines: 13
 
A swimming pool (when empty) is filled in this manner:
 First day : one bucket of water added
 Second day : two buckets of water added
 Third day : four buckets of water added
 Fourth day : eight buckets of water added, and so on.
 
Thus, it takes one month (30 days) to fill in completely the swimming pool.  When
is the swimming pool half filled and how many buckets of water are required to
fill the pool completely ?
 
 
Pradip
 


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 28-OCT-1992 14:09:46.62
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	swimming pool puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!convex!convex!dodson
From: dodson@convex.COM (Dave Dodson)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Swimming Pool (SPOILER)
Message-ID: <1992Oct27.225331.18374@news.eng.convex.com>
Date: 27 Oct 92 22:53:31 GMT
References: <1992Oct27.212150.4154@aio.jsc.nasa.gov>
Sender: usenet@news.eng.convex.com (news access account)
Reply-To: dodson@convex.COM (Dave Dodson)
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
Lines: 30
Originator: dodson@bach.convex.com
Nntp-Posting-Host: bach.convex.com
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.
 
In article <1992Oct27.212150.4154@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> nas_ps@jsc.nasa.gov writes:
>A swimming pool (when empty) is filled in this manner:
> First day : one bucket of water added
> Second day : two buckets of water added
> Third day : four buckets of water added
> Fourth day : eight buckets of water added, and so on.
>
>Thus, it takes one month (30 days) to fill in completely the swimming pool.
>When is the swimming pool half filled and how many buckets of water are
>required to fill the pool completely ?
 
The total number of buckets of water added to the pool in 30 days is
2^31 - 1 = 2,147,483,647.  After 29 days, you would have added "only"
2^30 - 1 = 1,073,741,823 buckets.  This is 1/2 bucket less than half
the total number for 31 days.
 
So the pool wouldn't be half full until some water was added on day 30.
If there was no evaporation, the first half-bucket on the last day would
do the job, but if water evaporates during the 30 days, it will take more
than a half-bucket-full on the last day to fill the pool half full.
 
Assuming the bucket holds 5 gallons and the pool averages 4 feet deep, it
would be almost 19,000 feet square.  Now that is a big pool!  If the pool
is 20 by 50 feet by 4 feet deep, the bucket would hold about 0.0032 cubic
inch of water, which is a few drops.  So how big is your bucket?
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Dave Dodson                                        dodson@convex.COM
Convex Computer Corporation      Richardson, Texas      (214) 497-4234


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 28-OCT-1992 14:12:58.21
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	hotel key puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!caen!umeecs!quip.eecs.umich.edu!kanad
From: kanad@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Kanad Chakraborty)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: A hashing puzzle.
Message-ID: <1992Oct28.144020.17170@zip.eecs.umich.edu>
Date: 28 Oct 92 14:40:20 GMT
Sender: news@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Mr. News)
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
Lines: 19
 
Consider the following scenario :
 
A hotel has 80 rooms, numbered 1 to 80. The keys to these rooms
are also denoted by these numbers; i.e. all keys with the number
i will open room i. A set S of exactly 100 people only use the hotel
in the following manner : (a) they always follow a certain, known
sequence while checking in -- i.e. there exists a known ordering
f(.) of these people such that a person with a lower value of
f(.) always checks in (but not necessarily leaves) before a person
with a higher value of f(.); (b) each person must check into a
vacant room and no two or more persons may share a room; (c) at any
given instant, the total number of people "using" the hotel (i.e.
either staying and/or checking in) is at most 80. Each of the 100 people
who use the hotel has keys pre-assigned to him/her by the management in
such a manner that whenever he/she checks in, he/she has a key to 
at least one vacant room.  What is the minimum total number of keys
necessary to allow this to happen ?
 
Kanad


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 28-OCT-1992 15:37:34.84
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	pi puzz

Xref: news.tufts.edu sci.math:13369 rec.puzzles:3603
Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!spool.mu.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!galois!riesz!jbaez
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Newsgroups: sci.math,rec.puzzles
Subject: Math puzzle
Message-ID: <1992Oct28.172121.19755@galois.mit.edu>
Date: 28 Oct 92 17:21:21 GMT
Sender: news@galois.mit.edu
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 35
Nntp-Posting-Host: riesz
 
 
If the math puzzles I just gave weren't silly enough for you, you may
enjoy the following one, also taken from the same source (but
dramatized).
 
My colleague across the hall came running into my room excited and out
of breath.  "I've discovered the most amazing formula for pi!"  "What is
it?" I asked.  He wrote it on my blackboard:
 
   pi = (10^{-5} Sum_{n=-infinity}^{n=infinity} e^{-n^2/(10^10)} )^2
 
"This is amazing!" I cried.  "Yes," he said, "it PROVES at last that there
is something fundamental about the decimal system!"  "Well, wait a
minute," I said.  "That would be really weird.  First of all, are you
sure this formula is true?"  "Well, I haven't proved it yet, but I've
been letting my computer run for weeks and so far it checks to thousands
of places."  "Hmm, that's not a proof, although it seems like pretty
good evidence."  
 
But, being, a suspicious sort, I cranked up my CRAY and checked the
formula.  The irritating thing is that the convergence is incredibly
slow at first, because of the 10^10 in the denominator of the exponent.
Luckily, after a while the n^2 starts growing fast and then convergence
becomes quite rapid.  I let the computer print out the digits and I
compared them to my massive tables of the digits of pi (all
mathematicians have such tables in their office).  It checked out
perfectly for over 42 billion digits!  But then, at some point (I lost
count) it went wrong!!
 
I went over and told my colleague and he was crushed, at first.  Then he
became convinced that there must have been an error in my program - or
more likely, just a random bit error due a cosmic ray!  After all, how
could it be right for 42 BILLION digits but not correct????
 
Who is right and why?


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 28-OCT-1992 16:20:29.63
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	urn balls puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!purdue!haven.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!hellgate.utah.edu!asylum.cs.utah.edu!tolman
From: tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Balls in the urn puzzle
Message-ID: <1992Oct28.132156.2182@hellgate.utah.edu>
Date: 28 Oct 92 20:21:55 GMT
Organization: University of Utah, CompSci Dept
Lines: 16
 
 
   You have an empty urn, and an infinite number of labeled balls.  Each
has a number written on it corresponding to when it will go in.  At a 
minute to the hour, you take the first ten balls and put them in the urn,
and remove the last ball.  At the next half interval, you put in the
next ten balls, and remove ball number 20.  At the next half interval,
you put in ten more balls and remove ball 30.  This continues for the
whole minute.... how many balls are in the urn at this point? (infinite)
 
   This is the tricky part.  You have the same urn, and the same set of
balls.  This time, you put in 10 balls and remove ball number 1.  Then
you put in another ten balls and remove ball number 2.  Then you put in
another ten balls and remove ball number 3.  After the minute is over,
how many balls are left in the urn now? (zero)
 
Are the above answers correct, and why or why not?


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 29-OCT-1992 12:56:24.38
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	urn 2 puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!jvnc.net!yale.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!news.Brown.EDU!noc.near.net!black.clarku.edu!black.clarku.edu!djoyce
From: djoyce@black.clarku.edu (Dave Joyce)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Balls in the urn puzzle, variations
Message-ID: <djoyce.720308791@black.clarku.edu>
Date: 28 Oct 92 21:46:31 GMT
References: <1992Oct28.132156.2182@hellgate.utah.edu>
Organization: Clark University (Worcester, MA)
Lines: 63
 
In <1992Oct28.132156.2182@hellgate.utah.edu>
tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman) writes about a puzzle
of infinitely many labelled balls that you move in and out of urns.  I
originally heard it in 1969, but it must have been old then.  My comments
later. 
 
Tolman's puzzle:
 
>   You have an empty urn, and an infinite number of labeled balls.  Each
>has a number written on it corresponding to when it will go in.  At a 
>minute to the hour, you take the first ten balls and put them in the urn,
>and remove the last ball.  At the next half interval, you put in the
>next ten balls, and remove ball number 20.  At the next half interval,
>you put in ten more balls and remove ball 30.  This continues for the
>whole minute.... how many balls are in the urn at this point? (infinite)
>
>   This is the tricky part.  You have the same urn, and the same set of
>balls.  This time, you put in 10 balls and remove ball number 1.  Then
>you put in another ten balls and remove ball number 2.  Then you put in
>another ten balls and remove ball number 3.  After the minute is over,
>how many balls are left in the urn now? (zero)
>
>Are the above answers correct, and why or why not?
>
 
Rather than answer this puzzle, I'd like to give a few comments and
variations.  The version I'm familiar with has three urns (actually "basket"
in that version).  All the balls start out in basket 1, then you move them to
basket 2, one at a time, then every tenth time you move one from basket 1 to
basket 2 you move one from basket 2 to basket 3.  Where they end up depends on
the order you move them from basket 2 to basket 3.
 
Now some variations.
 
I.  Have infinitely many baskets, labelled basket 1, basket 2, basket 3, etc.
All the balls start out in basket 1, and you move them one at a time from
basket 1 to basket 2 in the order that they're labelled, just as in the
original puzzle.  Whenever you move the ball labelled 10n from basket k to
basket k+1, also move the ball labelled n from basket k+1 to basket k+2.  So,
for instance, when you move ball 2000 from basket 1 to basket 2, also move
ball 200 from basket 2 to basket 3, ball 20 from basket 3 to basket 4, and
ball 2 from basket 4 to basket 5.  (As in the original puzzle, you have to
perform the moves faster and faster to get done in a finite time.)  The
question is:  When you're all done, where are all the balls?
 
II.  Simplify the puzzle.  Only one ball but infinitely many baskets.  Start
the ball in basket 1 and move it along sequentially one basket at a time.
When you're all done, where is the ball?
 
III.  Okay, II had too many baskets for a good puzzle.  Just have three
baskets instead.  Move the ball from basket 1 to basket 2 to basket 3 to
basket 1 to basket 2, etc., in a "circular" motion.  Speed the moves up as
before to be able to have infinitely many moves in a finite time.  When you're
all done, where is the ball?
 
By the way, does anybody know the source of this puzzle?
 
 
 
-- 
David E. Joyce				Dept. Math. & Comp. Sci.
Internet:  djoyce@black.clarku.edu	Clark University
BITnet:    djoyce@clarku		Worcester, MA 01610-1477


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 29-OCT-1992 12:57:23.51
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	b-day revisited puzz

Xref: news.tufts.edu sci.math:13410 rec.puzzles:3619
Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!techbook!dant
From: dant@techbook.com (Dan Tilque)
Newsgroups: sci.math,rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Another sort of birthday puzzle
Message-ID: <BwvMss.Iuq@techbook.com>
Date: 29 Oct 92 09:38:49 GMT
Expires: Thu, 29 Oct 1992 08:00:00 GMT
References: <Oct.24.05.17.13.1992.22443@remus.rutgers.edu> <1992Oct24.183017.13325@galois.mit.edu> <1992Oct25.080339.16732@sq.sq.com>
Organization: Pseudopolis Yard
Lines: 30
 
msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) writes:
>> 
>> Two twins (the usual number) celebrated their birthdays one year, and it
>> was rather unusual in that one celebrated his birthday two days before
>> the other!  What's more, the younger one celebrated his birthday first!
>> How did this happen?
>
>One posting with an attempted solution has reached here so far; it's
>wrong.  There isn't a "midnight line" that you can cross so that the
>time changes from 12:01 to 11:59.
 
Well, if you use local time and are in the Concord, there is a "midnight
line" you can cross this way.  But we usually use time zones.  For most
of the time zone around the date line, the difference between areas on
either side of the dateline is exactly 24 hours.  In some areas the
difference is less than 24 hours.  For example, between Siberia and
Alaska, the difference is only 21 hours.
 
How's this for an answer:  the plane is travelling east (not west) on
March 1 and one baby is born just before the date line is crossed.  The
other twin is born just after the dateline crossing but it is now
Febuary 28.  Every leap year, the younger twin celebrates his birthday
two days ahead of the other.
 
If you can find adjacent time zones that are more than 24 hours apart,
you can make the difference be three days.  The time zone map I have
availiable doesn't show any, but it's rather small.
 
---
Dan Tilque    --     dant@techbook.com


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" 29-OCT-1992 12:58:14.53
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	next term puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!olivea!spool.mu.edu!yale.edu!jvnc.net!darwin.sura.net!udel!louie!albert.udel.edu!ajit
From: ajit@albert.udel.edu (Ajit Thyagarajan)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: The next term is ...
Message-ID: <1992Oct29.152619.24449@udel.edu>
Date: 29 Oct 92 15:26:19 GMT
References: <1992Oct29.134615.24543@bcrka451.bnr.ca>
Sender: usenet@udel.edu (USENET News Service)
Organization: University of Delaware
Lines: 72
Nntp-Posting-Host: albert.udel.edu
 
 
>--------------------------------------------------
>What is the next term in the following sequence?
>
>1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221, ...
>--------------------------------------------------
 
I can take a guess at the answer. Maybe someone will agree with me!
 
*SPOILER*
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
* 2211111211 *
 
(well, it is not a complete guess)
 
Ajit


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "LITARASY ROOLS"  1-NOV-1992 13:38:17.15
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	number movement puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!olivea!charnel!rat!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!jvnc.net!yale.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!asylum.cs.utah.edu!tolman
From: tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: A maze
Message-ID: <1992Oct29.184606.18535@hellgate.utah.edu>
Date: 30 Oct 92 01:46:06 GMT
Organization: University of Utah, CompSci Dept
Lines: 21
 
This is a maze.  The object is start on the upper left hand corner, (1)
and to make it to the lower right hand corner.  A number says how far
you MUST move to get to the next spot.  You may move any direction,
vertically, horizontally, or diagonally.  A number that specifies movement
off the board is a "dead end"
 
1   5   3   4   3   6   7   1   1   6
 
4   4   3   4   2   6   2   6   2   5
 
1   3   9   4   5   2   4   2   9   5
 
5   2   3   5   5   6   4   6   2   4
 
1   3   3   2   5   6   5   2   3   2
 
2   5   2   5   5   6   4   8   6   1
 
9   2   3   6   5   6   2   2   2   EXIT
 
IF you like this, please tell!


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "LITARASY ROOLS"  1-NOV-1992 13:40:09.51
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	movement puzz ans

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!olivea!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!noc.msc.net!uc.msc.edu!shamash!larimer.cpg.cdc.com!larimer
From: larimer@cdc.com (Mark D. Larimer)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: A maze (SPOILER)
Message-ID: <49116@shamash.cdc.com>
Date: 30 Oct 92 12:11:58 GMT
References: <1992Oct29.184606.18535@hellgate.utah.edu>
Sender: usenet@shamash.cdc.com
Organization: Control Data Systems, Inc.
Lines: 26
X-UserAgent: Nuntius v1.1.1d12
X-XXMessage-ID: <A71682AA5901A11B@larimer.cpg.cdc.com>
X-XXDate: Fri, 30 Oct 92 12:11:54 GMT
 
In article <1992Oct29.184606.18535@hellgate.utah.edu> Kenneth Tolman, 
tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu writes:
>
>This is a maze.  The object is start on the upper left hand corner, (1)
>and to make it to the lower right hand corner.  A number says how far
>you MUST move to get to the next spot.  You may move any direction,
>vertically, horizontally, or diagonally.  A number that specifies
movement
>off the board is a "dead end"
 
From the start position, go:
 
Down
Down & to the right (diagonally)
Right
Down
 
EXIT
 
Whee!
 
Mark D. Larimer
(Control Data Systems, Inc.) && (University of Minnesota)
Internet: Mark.Larimer@cdc.com
 
Go Meanies (6-2) !!


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "LITARASY ROOLS"  1-NOV-1992 13:42:39.48
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	hotel puzz cont

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!umeecs!quip.eecs.umich.edu!kanad
From: kanad@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Kanad Chakraborty)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Part (b) of the hashing puzzle
Message-ID: <1992Oct30.203650.11694@zip.eecs.umich.edu>
Date: 30 Oct 92 20:36:50 GMT
Sender: news@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Mr. News)
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
Lines: 14
 
I forgot to mention part (b) of this problem.  Here it is :
 
(b) Similar scenario as before, with the following modifications :
 
"Exactly 100 people use the hotel, and *some* 80 or fewer of those 
arrive every day and leave the very next day. After they all leave, 
some (other) subset of size <= 80 arrive (i.e. the people arrive in
batches of size at most 80).  All the people have keys pre-assigned 
to them. What is the minimum total number of keys necessary to ensure
that there exists a way for these 80 or fewer people to accommodate
themselves in the 80 hotel rooms so that every person has a key to a
vacant room ?"
 
Kanad


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "LITARASY ROOLS"  2-NOV-1992 15:35:45.65
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	puzzle catalog

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!purdue!haven.umd.edu!uunet!infoserv!anton!anton
From: anton@anton.infoserv.com (Anton Dovydaitis)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Where to get a catalog of puzzles
Message-ID: <765281d8210938t3@anton.infoserv.com>
Date: 2 Nov 92 05:42:22 GMT
Organization: Ishi Press International
Lines: 24
X-Mailer: TMail version 1.06
 
Anyone who is interested in a catalog of over a hundred puzzles
can obtain one from Ishi Press International by emailing me, or
writing:
 
	Ishi Press International
	76 Bonaventura Drive
	San Jose, CA  95134
 
Make sure you ask for a PUZZLE catalog, as the other half of our
business is strategy games like Go, Shogi, Chinese Chess and Mah Jong.
 
If anyone is interested in obtaining any collector puzzles whatsoever,
please write: we carry puzzles by Kamei, Ninomiya, Nob, Trench puzzles
from England, rotational puzzles, trick boxes, various solitaires and
impossible objects.
 
Anton Dovydaitis
	
---
---------------------------------------------------------------
 
Anton Dovydaitis
Ishi Press International


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FAUSONTOMUS ARCHIMAGO-DUESSA"  3-NOV-1992 20:15:24.76
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	weigh 3 times puzz ans

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!csa!narain
From: narain@csa.bu.edu (narain attili)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Solution for picking the counterfeit out of 12 in 3 tries.
Message-ID: <100358@bu.edu>
Date: 2 Nov 92 23:26:53 GMT
Sender: news@bu.edu
Organization: Computer Science Department, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
Lines: 80
Originator: narain@csa
 
The solution is here.. I used coins instead of balls...
 
***************************************************************************
 
Let the coins be designated 1,2,3,.....12.
I organise them into 3 groups ie., (1,2,3,4), (5,6,7,8), (9,10,11,12).
 
let A = (1,2,3,4), B = (5,6,7,8), C = (9,10,11,12)
 
weigh A and B. There are three possibilities. (try#1)
 
1) A = B;
 
In this case the counterfeit is in C.
 
Weigh (9,10,x,) and (x,x,11).Here x belongs to A or B and is a known
counterfeit.(try#2)
    If equal 12 is the counterfeit.
    If (9,10,x) > (x,x,11)
        Then, either 11 is a lower counterfeit or 9 or 10 is a heavier
Counterfeit. 
        Now weigh(x,9) and (x,10)(try#3)
          Which ever weighs heavier is the heavier counterfeit, and if
          equal, 11 is a lower counterfeit.(total tries=3)
    If (9,10,x) < (x,x,11), then
          11 is a heavier counterfeit or 9 or 10 is lighter and a
counterfeit.
         next weigh (x,9) and (x,10) (try#3)
         Which ever is lighter is the lighter counterfeit and if equal, 11
is the heavier counterfeit.
   
      
 
Case 2:
 
A > B.
 
this implies that one of (1,2,3,4) is a heavy counterfeit or (5,6,7,8) is a
lighter counterfeit.
 
Now weigh (5,6,1,2) and (x,3,x,x) ( try#2) ( taking two elements from B etc.,.)
 
       If (5,6,1,2) > (x,3,x,x)
          then 1 or 2 is a heavy counterfeit;
 Now weigh (5,6,1,x) and (2,x,3,x) (try#3)
               If (5,6,1,x) is greater, then 1 is counterfeit;
               else 2 is counterfeit; Both cannot be equal;
                  # of attempts = 3.
 
 
       If (5,6,1,2) < (x,3,x,x)
          then 5 or 6 is a lighter CF or 3 is heavy CF;
           Now weigh (6,x,1,2) and (5,x,x,x) (try#3)
            if equal 3 is counterfeit; if the set containing 6 is heavier, 5 is
               the lighter counterfeit and if set containing 5 is heavier, 6 is
                 the lighter counterfeit.
 
       If (5,6,1,2)==(x,3,x,x)
           then the counterfeit is in the among the other three elements
           belonging  to A and B. ie either 7or 8 (lighter) or 4(heavier).
             Now weigh (7,4) and (x,x) (try#3)
               if (7,4) > (x,x) then 4 is the heavier counterfeit.
               if (7,4) < (x,x) then 7 is the lighter counterfeit.
               if (7,4)==(x,x) then 8 is the lighter counterfeit.
 
 
Case 3.
 
B > A.
 
This is similar to case 2 and can be tackled by the same algorithm.
 
 
***************************************************************************
 
I dont know if it is very clear to you. I tried my best to make the
explanation clear. Cannot make it better.
 
 
-Narain


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FAUSONTOMUS ARCHIMAGO-DUESSA"  4-NOV-1992 13:25:20.23
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	word puzz ans

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!umeecs!quip.eecs.umich.edu!kanad
From: kanad@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Kanad Chakraborty)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Break Time Head Work
Message-ID: <1992Nov4.164832.13302@zip.eecs.umich.edu>
Date: 4 Nov 92 16:48:32 GMT
References: <1992Nov4.133223.16332@aio.jsc.nasa.gov>
Sender: news@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Mr. News)
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Lines: 27
 
In article <1992Nov4.133223.16332@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> nas_ps@jsc.nasa.gov writes:
>The following word problems appeared recently in the Design News:
>
>1.	A hiker can average two miles per hour uphill and six miles per hour
>	downhill.  Going uphill and down, and if s/he spends no time at the
>	summit, what will be his/her average speed for an entire trip ?
 
3 mph   ( = 2 / (1/2 + 1/6) )
>
>2.	If it takes twice as long for a passenger train to pass a freight train
>	after it first overtakes it as it takes the two trains to pass when
>	going in opposite directions, how many times faster than the freight
>	train is the passenger train ?
 
Let lp and lf be the lengths, and sp and sf be the speeds of the
passenger train and freight train resp.
Then, time taken for the passenger train to pass the freight train
= lp/(sp - sf), and time taken for the trains to pass when going in
opposite directions = (lp + lf)/(sp + sf).
 
Since lp/(sp - sf)  = 2 * (lp+lf)/(sp + sf), therefore sp : sf = 2lp/lf + 1.
If the two trains are of the same length, then sp : sf = 3.
 
Kanad
   
 
   


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FAUSONTOMUS ARCHIMAGO-DUESSA"  4-NOV-1992 16:49:40.63
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	puzzle catalog2

Xref: news.tufts.edu sci.edu:1098 sci.misc:1618 sci.math:13725 rec.puzzles:3739 rec.games.misc:7202
Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!purdue!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!ncr-sd!ncrcae!ccscola!gevans
From: gevans@ccscola.Columbia (GKEvans)
Newsgroups: sci.edu,sci.misc,sci.math,rec.puzzles,rec.games.misc
Subject: If you love puzzles and brainteasers....
Message-ID: <407@ccscola.Columbia>
Date: 4 Nov 92 17:26:32 GMT
Reply-To: gevans@ccscola.Columbia ()
Organization: NCR CCSD Columbia
Lines: 79
 
Subject:  If you love puzzles & brainteasers...
 
(With Christmas rapidly approaching, some who missed my earlier
message have expressed an interest in receiving it so I am 
sending it out again.  I have made some revisions since the 
first message.)
 
If you  are a  puzzler (one who loves to solve any kind of puzzle
or brainteaser)  like I  am, one of your greatest frustrations is
finding good,  challenging puzzles.   I  have some very good news
for you.
 
On a  recent business trip to Seattle, Washington, I discovered a
puzzler's dream  come true:   a shop where you can see, touch and
purchase almost any kind of puzzle you can imagine.
 
The shop is called Puzzletts and is located in Seattle's Westlake
Center.   Mike and Conni Green opened the shop in May of 1991 and
it has  already become  a mecca  for puzzle-enthusiasts  from all
over the world.
 
Mike counts  over 5,000  puzzles in  his personal collection, and
his initial  fascination has  turned into  a labor  of love.   He
admits that  the goal  of his business is quite simply "to be the
nation's largest  single  source  of  puzzles,  brainteasers  and
related items.   We try to find puzzles people would never see in
their lifetimes  without our  help," Mike   says.  "We'll even do
puzzle  searches.    We  have  a  growing  database  of  puzzles,
manufacturers and  collectors, and  if someone  comes in  wanting
something their grandfather had, we'll try to find it."
 
Even his business cards are puzzles--and very good ones, too.  In
fact, everything  about his shop is excellent.  You will not find
the common  little mass-market  puzzles that  appear only  around
Christmas in  Hallmark shops  or "cute" boutiques in large malls.
What you will find are:
 
-  Japanese puzzle boxes (I have wanted one for years and years,
   and bought one at Puzzletts that solves in 20 moves);
-  Puzzle rings (in all price ranges);
-  disentanglements, sliding block, sequential movement, and
   geometrical vanish puzzles;
-  Wooden puzzles, metal puzzles, picture puzzles, and Mike &
   Conni's own line of delightful puzzles called Puzzletts:
   "pocket-size brass entanglements," Mike calls them.
 
   The list goes on and on.
 
You can  subscribe to  the  Puzzlett's  "PuzzleWorks"(tm)  puzzle
service catalog  for $25  per year.   The  first  issue  came out
in July of this year.  The puzzle service will give puzzlers 
access  to Puzzlett's  growing and  unique database, 10%
discounts on  anything purchased  in  the  subscription  year,  5
puzzle catalogs  a year,  and a  quarterly newsletter with puzzle
updates.
 
 
Each year Puzzlett's will produce for "PuzzleWorks" subscribers 5
catalogs with  high-quality black & white photos of 400 different
puzzles in  each catalog  - for 2000 different puzzles a year for
at least 10 years!  Subscribers to "PuzzleWorks" will receive the
first catalog  free and  will  even  receive  a  free  puzzle  or
brainteaser for  subscribing.   The catalog  itself will become a
reference manual  for years  to come,  and  Mike  also  plans  to
produce a  coffee-table style  "catalog-of-catalogs"  book  which
will have high-quality color photos of the puzzles, plus text and
commentary to  accompany the photos.  If you want to subscribe to
the catalog  or just talk with Mike and Conni about ordering some
puzzles, contact them at the address and numbers below.
 
Tell them you heard about them on Usenet!
 
     Puzzletts
     24843 144th Place. S.E.
     Kent, WA  98042
 
     (206) 630-1432   (voice/information)
     (206) 639-0994   (fax)
     (206) 223-2340   (orders only)


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FAUSONTOMUS ARCHIMAGO-DUESSA"  9-NOV-1992 12:35:55.71
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	name any five english words

Xref: news.tufts.edu rec.puzzles:3759 rec.org.mensa:4651
Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!uwm.edu!caen!batcomputer!cornell!rochester!udel!sbcs.sunysb.edu!engws3.ic.sunysb.edu!kthiruma
From: kthiruma@engws3.ic.sunysb.edu
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles,rec.org.mensa
Subject: the question is the answer ?!
Message-ID: <1992Nov5.213159.10826@sbcs.sunysb.edu>
Date: 5 Nov 92 21:31:59 GMT
Sender: usenet@sbcs.sunysb.edu (Usenet poster)
Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook
Lines: 37
Originator: kthiruma@engws3.ic.sunysb.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: engws3.ic.sunysb.edu
 
Hello :
 
In India there is a mag. called the ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY where
a guy called Mukul Sharma runs a popular column called MindSport.
One question he posed was what he called Douglas Hofstader's problem :
 
a question when repeated becomes its own answer.
 
For example :
 
What is named after james Watt ?
 
or
 
How do you do ?
 
or the classic-
 
Name any five English words ?
 
Two more examples are -
Which craft is practised by the witches ?
 
and
 
Who brought out a music album called Who's Next ?
 
 
Can the Reader's think of some more .
 
Please post ormail to :
 
kthiruma@ic.sunysb.edu
 
Thanks
 
Balaji Thirumalai Kumara.


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FAUSONTOMUS ARCHIMAGO-DUESSA"  9-NOV-1992 12:36:46.97
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	which is true puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!news.bbn.com!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!munnari.oz.au!jabaru.cec.edu.au!csource!acsnet
From: Tim.Epstein@f526.n635.z3.fidonet.org (Tim Epstein)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Logic Puzzle
Message-ID: <721041158.AA07433@csource.oz.au>
Date: 5 Nov 92 12:52:03 GMT
Sender: acsnet@csource.oz.au
Lines: 17
 
G'day. 
 
As every puzzle I've read here so far seems to be of the 
mathematical type, I thought I'd through in a logic puzzle. 
(Apologies if it has already been posted - I'm new here) 
 
Which of the following 5 sentences are true?
 
a) It is not the case that 2 consecutive sentences are both false. 
b) There are fewer false than true sentences. 
c) It is not the case that 3 consecutive sentences are all false.
d) It is not the case that 2 consecutive sentences are both true. 
e) There are exactly 3 false sentences. 
 
Have fun,
Tim
 * Origin: I am serious ... and don't call me Shirley. (3:635/526)


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FAUSONTOMUS ARCHIMAGO-DUESSA"  9-NOV-1992 12:38:44.47
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	name any five english words puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!purdue!haven.umd.edu!uunet!munnari.oz.au!ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU!ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au!lugb!news
From: MATMNB@LURE.LATROBE.EDU.AU (BRAZIL,Marcus N)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: the question is the answer ?!
Message-ID: <1992Nov9.040447.12270@lugb.latrobe.edu.au>
Date: 9 Nov 92 04:04:47 GMT
References: <1992Nov5.213159.10826@sbcs.sunysb.edu> <BxB2F4.IM@news.cso.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@lugb.latrobe.edu.au (USENET News System)
Organization: La Trobe University
Lines: 4
In-Reply-To: acheng@ncsa.uiuc.edu's message of Fri, 6 Nov 1992 17:40:01 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24
 
> In article <1992Nov5.213159.10826@sbcs.sunysb.edu>, kthiruma@engws3.ic.sunysb.edu () writes:
> >Can the Reader's think of some more .
 
What is a question that can be answered by a question?


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FAUSONTOMUS ARCHIMAGO-DUESSA" 11-NOV-1992 12:42:58.79
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	false puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!decwrl!cache.crc.ricoh.com!james
From: james@crc.ricoh.com (James Allen)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: Logic Puzzle
Message-ID: <1992Nov7.234034.24574@crc.ricoh.com>
Date: 7 Nov 92 23:40:34 GMT
References: <721041158.AA07433@csource.oz.au>
Organization: RICOH California Research Center
Lines: 89
 
In <721041158.AA07433@csource.oz.au>
	Tim.Epstein@f526.n635.z3.fidonet.org (Tim Epstein) writes
] Which of the following 5 sentences are true?
]  
] a) It is not the case that 2 consecutive sentences are both false. 
] b) There are fewer false than true sentences. 
] c) It is not the case that 3 consecutive sentences are all false.
] d) It is not the case that 2 consecutive sentences are both true. 
] e) There are exactly 3 false sentences. 
 
Let me rewrite this as
 
Given that Z is true, which of A-E are true?
  
 (Z) Statements A-E (which describe A-E) are each either true or false.
 
 (A) It is not the case that 2 consecutive sentences are both false. 
 (B) There are fewer false than true sentences. 
 (C) It is not the case that 3 consecutive sentences are all false.
 (D) It is not the case that 2 consecutive sentences are both true. 
 (E) There are exactly 3 false sentences. 
 
Making the assumption of Z explicit is not pedantic.  We also assume
a statement is not both true and false.  From Z we can derive:
 
 (1) D implies that C and E are each false.
     =
 
 (2) A implies D and/or E is true
     =
 
 (3) E implies that at most one of A,B,C are true.
     =
 
 (4) not D implies at least two of A,B,C are true.
         =
 
 (5) not D and not E together imply that A,B,C are all true.
         =         =
 
 (6) not C and D together imply that A and B are each false.
         =
 
To clarify the derivations of relationships (1)-(6) I have underlined
the statements which actually have to be read to establish them.
For example in (1) the truth of D would imply that the "adjacent"
statement C or E could not be true regardless of its contents.
 
Now (1)-(6)  have a unique solution:
 
 (I)	If E is true so is D (3,4) but that contradicts (1).  Thus from Z,
	E must be false.
 
 (II) 	If D is false then A is true (5) since E is false (I); but this
	contradicts (2).  Thus D must be true.
 
 (III)	Since D is true (II), C is false (1).
 
 (IV)	A and B are each false (II, III, 6).
 
Note that we never "had to read" statement B in this derivation.  The
exact same argument works regardless of B's "contents."  For example
B might have been "The sun will rise tomorrow." and we will have derived
a very disappointing conclusion.  The solution to this "paradox" is simple:
if B did enunciate a truth, we would have established that Z is false!
 
For similar puzzles read Smullyan -- What Was the Name of His Book, Anyway?
  
] Have fun,
] Tim
 
It was fun.
 
]  * Origin: I am serious ... and don't call me Shirley. (3:635/526)
 
This puzzle I didn't solve.
 
In <1992Nov6.160449.21495@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu>
	dcarroll@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (Dana Carroll) writes:
] This puzzle is not solvable!  My reasoning is as follows:
] . . .
]             2.111 (c) false implies (d) true, but then (c) is true.
                                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
] . . .
] Did I do something wrong?
 
I think so -- I don't understand 2.111.
 
James


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FAUSONTOMUS ARCHIMAGO-DUESSA" 11-NOV-1992 12:44:32.10
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	quest is ans puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!rpi!gatech!darwin.sura.net!jvnc.net!netnews.upenn.edu!netnews.cc.lehigh.edu!ns1.cc.lehigh.edu!dsbb
From: dsbb@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (D. SPENCER BEECHER)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: the question is the answer ?!
Message-ID: <1992Nov9.150559.64488@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu>
Date: 9 Nov 92 15:05:59 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University
Lines: 16
 
kthiruma@engws3.ic.sunysb.edu writes:
>Hello :
>
>In India there is a mag. called the ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY where
>a guy called Mukul Sharma runs a popular column called MindSport.
>One question he posed was what he called Douglas Hofstader's problem :
>
>a question when repeated becomes its own answer.
 
The classic:
 
The question is, what is the question?
-- 
                   _ _     _ _     _ _
  -Spence         [O.O]   )x.x(   )O.O(
                    O       O      -*-


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FAUSONTOMUS ARCHIMAGO-DUESSA" 11-NOV-1992 12:48:17.50
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	'the answer' puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!uwm.edu!biosci!agate!doc.ic.ac.uk!clss1.bangor.ac.uk!sees.bangor.ac.uk!thomas
From: thomas@sees.bangor.ac.uk (Thomas Varsamidis)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: the question is the answer ?!
Message-ID: <1992Nov9.205312@sees.bangor.ac.uk>
Date: 9 Nov 92 20:53:12 GMT
References: <1992Nov9.151118.45407@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu>
Sender: thomas@sees.bangor.ac.uk (Thomas Varsamidis (SH))
Organization: University of Wales (Bangor)
Lines: 11
 
This is somewhat different, but the idea is the same:
 
Q: How many letters are there in the answer?
A: Four
 
 
 
 
 
 
Thomas.


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FAUSONTOMUS ARCHIMAGO-DUESSA" 11-NOV-1992 12:51:34.90
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	billion puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!scd.hp.com!hpscdm!hplextra!hpcss01!hpergfg2!pollux!ryoung
From: ryoung@pollux.svale.hp.com (Roderick Young)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Billion-year survivability
Message-ID: <10920011@pollux.svale.hp.com>
Date: 9 Nov 92 21:33:43 GMT
Organization: Hewlett Packard CPCD, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 4
 
If I wanted to send information to a society that will inhabit the earth
one billion years in the future, how would I do it?  If I engraved the
message on a bunch of diamonds, then buried the diamonds in a secure place,
would that do it?  There must be a better way.


From:	PEARL::LSONKO       "FAUSONTOMUS ARCHIMAGO-DUESSA" 11-NOV-1992 12:52:16.16
To:	 
CC:	LSONKO      
Subj:	quest ans puzz

Path: news.tufts.edu!bu.edu!att!linac!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!darwin.sura.net!jvnc.net!gmd.de!hoens
From: hoens@gmd.de (Guenter Hoens)
Newsgroups: rec.puzzles
Subject: Re: the question is the answer ?!
Message-ID: <hoens.721385715@gmd.de>
Date: 10 Nov 92 08:55:15 GMT
References: <1992Nov9.151118.45407@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> <1992Nov9.205312@sees.bangor.ac.uk> <1992Nov9.215833.4380@zip.eecs.umich.edu> <latarra.721370589@camelot>
Sender: news@gmd.de (USENET News)
Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, Germany
Lines: 13
Nntp-Posting-Host: gmdzi
 
In <latarra.721370589@camelot> latarra@camelot.bradley.edu (Lisa Ehren) writes:
 
>My english prof came up with this one, unintentionally:
 
>Which is the nonrestrictive clause beginning?
 
what is the most used question word?
 
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* Guenter Hoens, GMD - I8, 
* German National Research Center for Computer Science
* hoens@gmd.de    (02241) 14-2408






