A Martian sand lizard can reproduce itself in a single day. Start with a single sand lizard and on succeeding days you’ll have 2, then 4, and so on. In 30 days you’ll have 536,870,912 lizards.
How long would it take to reach that number if you started with two lizards?
By W. Bone. White to move and mate in four.
The catch: He must mate with the queen — and she’s glued to the board.
A traveler reaches a river at the point A and wishes to know the width across to B. As he has no means of crossing the river, what is the easiest way of finding its width?
From Henry Dudeney.
You’re new to hell, and you’re given a choice: You can go directly to the fourth circle, or you can play simultaneous chess games against Alexander Alekhine and Aron Nimzowitsch. Alekhine always plays black and smokes a pipe of brimstone. Nimzowitsch plays white and wears cufflinks made of human teeth. Neither has ever lost.
If you can manage even a draw against either player, you’ll be set free. But if they both beat you, you’ll go to the eighth circle for eternity.
What should you do?
Benjamin Franklin wrote from Passy, in 1781, a letter to M. Dumas. He said:— ‘I have just received a 14, 5, 3, 10, 28, 2, 76, 203, 66, 11, 12, 273, 50, 14, joining 76, 5, 42, 45, 16, 15, 424, 235, 19, 20, 69, 580, 11, 150, 27, 56, 35, 104, 652, 20, 675, 85, 79, 50, 63, 44, 22, 219, 17, 60, 29, 147, 136, 41, but this is not likely to afford 202, 55, 580, 10, 227, 613, 176, 373, 309, 4, 108, 40, 19, 97, 309, 17, 35, 90, 201, 100, 677.’ This has never been deciphered. The state department at Washington has no key to it. I submit it for the consideration of the whole world.
— Elliott Sandford, New York World, cited in Henry Williams, A Book of Curious Facts, 1903
04/09/2014 Now solved!
12/30/2014 Oops, that link seems to have gone bad. Here’s another one. The numbers are keyed to the text of a book that Franklin’s correspondent Charles Dumas had sent to him. The message reads, “I have just received a neuu comiissjon joining me uuith m adams in negodiaions for peace but this is not likely to afford me much employ at present.”
Here’s a poser adapted from a 1923 intelligence test:
“I was so sorry to hear of Harold’s death, Mary.”
“Thank you, Mildred.”
“May I ask the circumstances?”
“Of course. He had fallen asleep in church during the sermon and was dreaming that an executioner was approaching to cut off his head. He had witnessed some rather gruesome things during the Boxer Rebellion in China some years ago, you know. Just as the sword was falling, I happened to touch him on the back of his neck with my fan, to awaken him. The shock was too great, and he fell forward dead.”
What’s wrong with this story?
