Food for the Puzzle Fiend

A Handful of What Appear Like Simple Puzzles

R. F. FOSTER

THE difference between a problem and a puzzle is that anyone can solve a problem if one knows the process. Half the puzzles one sees are really problems in algebra. If you understand the process, they are easy. If you don't, they are impossible. In a puzzle everyone has an equal chance.

There are any number of men who can whip out a fountain pen and prove that if a + b is equal to c — d, the square root of y must be twice the cube root of x. But they cannot explain how the juice gets into the cup under the crust of a deep-dish pie.

The provinces that have been invaded by the puzzle fiend are legion. Geometry, mechanics, chemistry, book keeping, relationships, insurance, cryptograms, anagrams, clock faces, baseball, cards, dominoes, and matches have all furnished material, not only for problems but for puzzles pure and simple.

To state a puzzle concisely, yet covering every point, is as great an art as after-dinner speaking. Like a good story, a good puzzle depends on the way it is put and its selection for the audience before it.

THERE are a number of puzzles that are puzzles only in the way they are stated, such as if a hen-and-a-half will lay an egg-and-a-half in a day-and-ahalf, how many hens will lay eleven eggs in eleven days? This is borrowed from the English question: if you can buy a herring-and-a-half for three ha'pence, how many can you get for eleven pence?

"How old is Ann?" is probably a little too deep for a dinner party, and some one is sure to know the answer, but the difference between six dozen dozen and a half dozen dozen may catch some of them. In this class are a number of puzzles that have double answers, either of which is correct, so that whichever the victim chooses can be pronounced the wrong one. For instance : If a man had twenty sick sheep, and one died, how many would he have left? Or, what is the difference between twice twenty-five, and twice five and twenty? Very similar is the difference between twenty four quart bottles, and four and twenty quart bottles—that deceptive problem.

PROBABLY the most amusing puzzles are really catches. The expert conjurer deceives his audience chiefly by distracting their attention from the vital part of the trick. Just so the clever puzzle maker emphasizes some part of the question that has nothing to do with the answer and slurs over the word that gives the key. That is why so many are caught by the man who shows three pennies, juggles them around and then insists that there are four, finally asking if you will pay for the luncheon if he is wrong. When you agree, he acknowledges that he is wrong; but you buy the luncheon.

Mention the curious difficulty some persons have in distinguishing cubic measure from square, and how many you have known that insisted there were only nine square feet in a cubic yard and then ask how many cubic feet of dirt are in a hole that is nine feet long, four wide, three deep at one end, and two deep at the other. The moment the smart young man takes out his pencil you will know that he has swallowed the bait; because there is no dirt in a hole.

This is in line with the question, how many hard boiled eggs could a hungry man eat on an empty stomach if it took five minutes to boil the eggs hard, one minute to eat them, and he had just ten minutes to catch a train?

SPEAKING of eggs, suppose there were five people at the table and the cook fried five eggs. Every one got an egg, yet there was one left in the dish. How did the cook manage it?

Because of the way the question is put, some puzzles look as if they required a pencil and paper to work them out when they are really quite simple. As a sample of this class, if the number of cents paid for three dozen apples is the same as the number of apples that can be bought for a dollar, how much are the apples a dozen? This does not require any algebra, because three dozen at 20 is 60, and 60 at 20 a dozen is a dollar's worth, yet some persons can never guess it.

ANOTHER of the same character is the horse trade. There were two men, each of whom wanted the other man's horse. One offered to buy or sell for $50 to boot. The other insisted that instead of paying $50, lie should get $10. They finally agreed to split the difference. What does this amount to in cash, $30 or $20?

Perhaps one of the most astonishing propositions is to offer to prove that there are two cows in the world with exactly the same number of hairs in their tails. It is for your audience to guess how you are going to prove it, because you cannot bring the cows into the dining room.

If any one doubts your ability to prove any such proposition and proposes to bet a box of golf balls or candy, it may open the way for you to ask if a box of candy cost two dollars and a half, and the salesman assured you that the candy was worth two dollars more than the box, what is. the box worth? It will be your privilege to laugh if they say fifty cents.

THE distraction of the attention from the point is the feature of many good puzzles. Here is a very simple example: two trains leave at exactly the same time; one from Chicago and the other from New York. The Chicago train travels 40 miles an hour; the one from New York 50. Which will be farther from New York when they meet? Remember that it is the New York train that is going fifty miles an hour, and the distance to Chicago is just a thousand miles.

The emphasis must be placed on the last sentence. I have seen two passengers in the smoking room of an ocean steamer spend half an hour, with finger tips moistened in spilled highballs, covering the table with diagrams to demonstrate the distance these trains would travel before they met, which is not the question at all.

The most difficult of this class of puzzles, and probably the best in existence, is the one about the man that drove from one side of Long Island to the other. As both ends of the journey were at sea level he must have travelled exactly as much uphill as he did down. Granting that the distance uphill was the same as the distance downhill, suppose the best his horse could do was three miles an hour uphill. How fast would he have to go downhill to average six miles an hour for the whole journey ? Any one who can answer this question correctly inside of two minutes is clearheaded enough to stand several more highballs.

ROOM for argument is a strong point in many puzzles, and there are a number of questions that are amusing chiefly on account of the variety of opinions they evoke. The correct answer is not the point, the arguments to support one and then the other are everything. One of the best known is the old question as to which moves faster, the top or the bottom of a rolling wheel. There is room for abundant argument in the following: If there is a monkey hanging on the end of a rope that passes over a pulley, and to the other end of the rope is attached a weight that exactly balances the monkey, what will happen if the monkey climbs the rope?

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A very similar question, and having the same answer, is whether a man silting in a boat, in still water, could propel the boat through the water by pulling on a rope attached to the stern.

This may sound like the old saw about the man who tried to lift himself by his boot straps, but it involves a very interesting scientific fact.

Clear thinking, rather than scientific knowledge, is required to solve a number of puzzles of this character. Here is a very simple one; when you see it:

A lock-keeper on a canal was notified that fifty empty barges would pass through next day, and was asked if there was water enough. The empties drew only two feet of water and displaced 960 cubic feet of water each, while in the lock. How much more water would be required to float them than would have been required had they been loaded, drawing 12 feet, and displacing six times as much water in the lock?

PERHAPS the king pin puzzle for arousing acrimonious discussion is the iceman's weighing machine. As everyone knows, ice carts are usually provided with a spring scale, technically known as a stillion, which hangs on a hook at the back of the wagon. A little indicator that travels up and down the slit in the scale shows how much the piece of ice weighs.

It obviously does not matter what the scale hangs on, the weight indicated is the same, or should be. Let us suppose the piece of ice weighs 50 pounds, the scale itself weighing two pounds. If both scale and ice were hung upon another scale of the same character, instead of upon a hook, what would be. the reading of the indicator on each of the two scales?

There are a number of puzzles that rely upon popular fallacies to mislead. For instance: Two men agree to toss a coin ten times, but each wants to bet bn heads. One finally offers to bet that it will come five times heads and five times tails. How much odds, if any, should he give?

There are a great many variations of the puzzle of the man on the moving train, who stood at the rear and shot an arrow at a man on the engine in front. The speed of the arrow is exactly the same as that of the train. Will the speed of the train carry the man in front out of danger, so that the arrow will never reach him, or not?

Another excuse for argument lies in the question about the bird sitting in a large airtight cage, which weighs twenty pounds, the bird weighing four ounces in addition. If the bird leaves its perch and flies round in the cage, what will the whole thing weigh?

MANY various opinions will be expressed if the question is what would happen to a person in a falling elevator, if that person should jump into the air just before it hit the bottom. Another is the result of a collision head on between two skaters of exactly the same weight; one being padded out with an air cushion to represent a member of the fat men's club, while the other is tall and thin. Which one would recoil the greater distance?

Those who are studying how to cook for soldiers may be able to solve this one: The lemonade man at the circus' asked the clown to taste the mixture, which was nine parts lemon juice and water to one part of syrup. The clown said it was just twice too sweet Howmuch of the stock mixture should be added to make it right?

THERE are a number of puzzles that require either the ability to draw or a prepared diagram. Rebuses are the most popular of these, and some of them are rather clever. The following is a good specimen:

if the B m t put:

If the B . putting:

This reads: If the great B m t put colon. If the great B full stop putting colon.

There are any number of puzzles with figures and matches, but these will probably be enough for this year. By the way, speaking of years, you might ask your neighbor at dinner if she is aware that 1918 will be the shortest year on record. If she doubts it, tell her it begins and ends on the same day, Tuesday.

Some people are very fond of rebuses. These consist of pictorial representations of words, or parts of w'ords, and are of two kinds. In one the answer is to be found by what might be called straight reading; in the other there is a double meaning.