Suburban Physics

You’re driving a car. The windows are closed. In the back seat is a kid holding a helium balloon.

You turn right. You and the kid sway to the left. What does the balloon do?

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The balloon sways to the right, into the turn and away from you and the kid. As you turn right, inertia pulls the air in the cabin to the left, displacing the balloon.

March 8, 2007January 15, 2013 | Puzzles · Science & Math

Safety First

On an average weekend, the emergency room at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford treats 67 children for injuries sustained in accidents.

On two recent weekends, however — June 21, 2003, and July 16, 2005 — only 36 children needed treatment. Can you guess why?

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Each of those weekends saw the release of a new Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in 2003 and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in 2005). So presumably many kids were too busy reading to get into accidents. This may spark a new trend in public health. “It may … be hypothesised,” wrote a team of researchers in the British Medical Journal, “that there is a place for a committee of safety conscious, talented writers who could produce high quality books for the purpose of injury prevention.”

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March 5, 2007January 15, 2013 | Puzzles

Requiescat In Pace

William Andrews, Curious Epitaphs, 1899

A puzzle from 1796. “This curious inscription is humbly dedicated to the penetrating geniuses of Oxford, Cambridge, Eton, and the learned Society of Antiquaries.” Can you decipher it?

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Just ignore the punctuation: “Beneath this stone reposeth Claud Coster, tripe-seller, of Impington, as doth his consort Jane.” (Cited in William Andrews, Curious Epitaphs, 1899)

February 15, 2007January 15, 2013 | Puzzles

Highway Robbery

A stranger called at a shoe store and bought a pair of boots costing six dollars, in payment for which he tendered a twenty-dollar bill. The shoemaker could not change the note and accordingly sent his boy across the street to a tailor’s shop and procured small bills for it, from which he gave the customer his change of fourteen dollars. The stranger then disappeared, when it was discovered that the twenty-dollar note was counterfeit, and of course the shoemaker had to make it good to the tailor. Now the question is, how much did the shoemaker lose?

— H.E. Licks, Recreations in Mathematics, 1917

February 12, 2007November 19, 2010 | Puzzles

Connection Puzzle

connection puzzle

Here’s a simplified version of a classic puzzle by Sam Loyd. Connect each square to its triangle with a line. The lines must stay within the boundary and may not cross one another.

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January 31, 2007January 16, 2013 | Puzzles

Alcohol Problem

Fill one glass with wine and another with water. Transfer a teaspoonful of wine from the first glass into the second. Then transfer a teaspoonful of that mixture back into the first glass. Now, is there more wine in the water or water in the wine?

Most people will predict it’s the former, but in fact the two quantities will always be the same. Can you see why?

January 11, 2007November 22, 2010 | Puzzles · Science & Math

One-Sided States

Only two U.S. state names can be typed with a single hand on a normal keyboard. What are they?

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TEXAS can be typed with the left hand alone, and OHIO with the right.

November 27, 2006January 15, 2013 | Puzzles

A Weighty Problem

“Here is a quaintly told problem in mechanics, which, despite its apparent simplicity, is said to have caused Lewis Carroll considerable disquietude,” writes Sam Loyd in his Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles, Tricks, and Conundrums (1914). He quotes Carroll:

If, to a rope, passed over a loose pulley, is suspended a ten-pound counter weight, which balances exactly with a monkey eating an apple, swinging at the other end, what would be the result if the monkey attempts to climb the rope?

“It is very curious to note the different views taken by good mathematicians,” Carroll noted. “Price says the weight goes up with increasing velocity. Both Clifton and Harcourt maintain that the weight goes up at the same rate of speed as the monkey; while Sampson says that it goes down.”

So which is it? Be warned, Loyd’s thinking is inconclusive.

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Lewis Carroll’s monkey puzzle is about as paradoxical as a recent conundrum which is going the rounds, as to what is it that will go down a chimney down, but will not go up a chimney up? (Umbrella.) There are three possible consequences to select from in the monkey problem: The progress of climbing might have no effect whatever upon the equilibruim; it might cause the weight to fall, which would raise the monkey quicker than he wished, or it might raise the weight, which would be apt to give the monkey a tumble. From the standpoint of a guess, pure and simple, opinions were about evenly divided, so two out of three were wrong in their conclusions. From a theoretical and scientific point of view it is just as paradoxical as the umbrella conundrum, for if the monkey goes up he will go down, whereas if he goes down he will go up. The argument is based on Newton’s law that “action is equal to reaction.” The engine which moves a train is pulling itself along by the rails. Theoretically speaking, if there was no friction, a fly could not crawl up that rope without destroying the equilibrium, so that the rope would be drawn over the pully and the monkey end fall by a rapidly increasing momentum. And there he leaves it.

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November 22, 2006January 15, 2013 | Puzzles

Desert Downpour

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grifo_m%C3%A1gico.JPG — Image: Wikimedia Commons

A “magic tap” continuously fills a basin in El Puerto de Santa María, Spain. How is this possible?

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The stream of water hides a pipe that supports the handle and drives the fountain.

October 25, 2006April 21, 2024 | Art · Oddities · Puzzles

Problem Solved

What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?

It can’t happen. If a force is irresistible, then by definition there’s no such thing as an immovable object (and vice versa).

October 20, 2006October 17, 2006 | Puzzles