Stairway to Seven

You hate visiting your girlfriend because there’s no elevator in her apartment building. And now she’s moved from the fourth floor to the seventh. How many times longer does this make your ascent?

	Select Click for Answer
It’s twice as long. You had to climb three flights to get from the first floor to the fourth; now you must climb six flights to get from the first to the seventh. That was the solution intended by Russian mathematician Boris Kordemsky, who invented the puzzle. It’s not valid in Britain, interestingly, which counts the ground-level story as the “ground floor,” the one above that as the first, etc. Evidently Russians and Americans have more in common than we thought.

Click for Answer

December 20, 2009January 22, 2013 | Puzzles

His and Hers

Many masculine nouns can be converted to feminine with a suffix, as HERO-HEROINE and HOST-HOSTESS.

Name a feminine noun that can be converted to masculine with a suffix.

	Select Click for Answer
I was thinking of WIDOW-WIDOWER, but two readers point out that BRIDE-BRIDEGROOM also works if GROOM counts as a suffix.

December 14, 2009January 22, 2013 | Language · Puzzles

Open and Shut

Every room in my house has an even number of doors.

Prove that the house has an even number of exterior doors.

	Select Click for Answer
Each door has two sides, so the total number of door sides is even. Since the number of door sides inside the house is even, the number on the exterior must be even as well. From L.A. Graham, Ingenious Mathematical Problems and Methods, 1959.

December 7, 2009January 22, 2013 | Puzzles

Track Meet

One train leaves Los Angeles for New York at 60 mph.

At the same time, another train leaves New York for Los Angeles at 40 mph.

What is the distance between them one hour before they meet?

	Select Click for Answer
The trains are traveling at 100 mph relative to one another, so one hour before they meet they’ll be 100 miles apart.

December 4, 2009January 22, 2013 | Puzzles

Who’s Laughing Now?

A.A. Bennett offered this puzzle in the American Mathematical Monthly of May 1937:

A car with n (n > 2) passengers of different speeds of mental reaction passes through a tunnel and each passenger acquires unconsciously a smudge of soot upon his forehead. Suppose that each passenger

(1) laughs and continues to laugh as soon as and only so long as he sees a smudge upon the forehead of a fellow passenger;
(2) can see the foreheads of all his fellows;
(3) reasons correctly;
(4) will clean his own forehead when and only when his reasoning forces him to conclude that he has a smudge;
(5) knows that (1), (2), (3), and (4) hold for each of his fellows.

Show that each passenger will eventually wipe his own forehead.

	Select Click for Answer
I don’t have Bennett’s solution, but here’s mine: Take the simplest case, with three people, A, B, and C. Each can see smudges on his friends’ foreheads, so all are laughing. A reasons: Suppose my own forehead is clean. Then B can see only one smudge, the one on C’s forehead. But B sees that C is laughing. This should prove to B that his own forehead must have a smudge, and he should wipe it off. He isn’t doing so. This must mean that this whole supposition — that my own forehead is clean — is false. With that realization, A wipes his own forehead. And at that point his supposition comes true, and B cleans his own forehead, following the reasoning given above. Now C sees that A and B are laughing, and that they both have clean foreheads. This tells C that his own forehead must be smudged, and he cleans it. So that’s the case with three people. Now start over and add D. D can think: If my own forehead were clean, all of the above reasoning would hold and A would clean his forehead. He isn’t doing so. That must mean that my own forehead is dirty. D cleans his forehead and everything else plays out as above. Then similarly you can add E, and F, and as many additional people as you like, following the same idea.

Click for Answer

December 1, 2009January 22, 2013 | Puzzles

Formal Speech

A puzzle by Isaac Asimov:

What word in the English language changes its pronunciation when it is capitalized?

	Select Click for Answer
Asimov was thinking of polish, but there are many others: august, herb, job, lima, natal, nice, rainier, reading, rodeo, tangier … … and the delightful Mousehole, a village in Cornwall whose name is pronounced mau-zill — and which presumably contains mouseholes. Thanks to Wade and Dominic for the long list.

November 28, 2009January 22, 2013 | Language · Puzzles

The Mail Plane

A motorcyclist was sent by the post office to meet a plane at the airport.

The plane landed ahead of schedule, and its mail was taken toward the post office by horse. After half an hour the horseman met the motorcyclist on the road and gave him the mail.

The motorcyclist returned to the post office 20 minutes earlier than he was expected.

How many minutes early did the plane land?

	Select Click for Answer
The motorcyclist would have taken 20 minutes to go from where he met the horseman to the airport and back. Thus he was 10 minutes from the airport when he met the horseman. These 10 minutes plus the 30 minutes the horseman had been riding before they met make 40 minutes the plane was ahead of schedule. From B.A. Kordemsky, The Moscow Puzzles, 1956.

November 19, 2009January 22, 2013 | Puzzles

A Geometry Problem

A poser from 1821:

Mathematicians affirm that of all bodies contained under the same superficies, a sphere is the most capacious: But they have never considered the amazing capaciousness of a body, the name of which is now required, of which it may be truly affirmed, that supposing its greatest length 9 inches, greatest breadth 4 inches, and greatest depth 3 inches, yet under these dimensions it contains a solid foot?

What is this body?

	Select Click for Answer
A shoe. Don’t blame me. From Rational Amusements for Winter Evenings, by John Jackson, “private teacher of the mathematics.”

November 16, 2009January 22, 2013 | Puzzles

The Card Challenge

A problem posed by Harry Houdini: Given a piece of cardboard measuring 4″ × 2.5″, cut it so that a person can pass completely through it without tearing it.

Can it be done?

	Select Click for Answer
Cut the card as shown and it can be drawn out into an endless chain, with an opening large enough for a man to pass it over his body. “A thin person could use a much smaller card.” From Houdini’s Paper Magic, 1922.

November 13, 2009January 22, 2013 | Puzzles

“A Crime Story”

From the American journal Scripta Mathematica:

An elementary school teacher in New York state had her purse stolen. The thief had to be Lilian, Judy, David, Theo, or Margaret. When questioned, each child made three statements:

Lilian:
(1) I didn’t take the purse.
(2) I have never in my life stolen anything.
(3) Theo did it.

Judy:
(4) I didn’t take the purse.
(5) My daddy is rich enough, and I have a purse of my own.
(6) Margaret knows who did it.

David:
(7) I didn’t take the purse.
(8) I didn’t know Margaret before I enrolled in this school.
(9) Theo did it.

Theo:
(10) I am not guilty.
(11) Margaret did it.
(12) Lillian is lying when she says I stole the purse.

Margaret:
(13) I didn’t take the teacher’s purse.
(14) Judy is guilty.
(15) David can vouch for me because he has known me since I was born.

Later, each child admitted that two of his statements were true and one was false. Assuming this is true, who stole the purse?

	Select Click for Answer
Theo is innocent because he says so twice. Then (9) is a lie. Since (9) is a lie, (8) is true. Since (8) is true, (15) is a lie. Since (15) is a lie, (14) is true. Judy is the thief.

November 11, 2009January 22, 2013 | Puzzles