BS: Puzzles. can you help me?

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: DMcG
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:50 AM

No!

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Cluin
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:03 PM

Thr train is going 24 MPH, twice as fast as the runner.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Cluin
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:03 PM

Or maybe just a bit slower to give him an extra second or two to get out of the way.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Cluin
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:08 PM

If he heads back the way he came, he has to travel 1/4 the length of the tunnel and he meets the train, i.e. the train gets to the beginning of the tunnel.

So it follows that if he heads on towards the far end, when the train gets to the beginning of the tunnel, he is halfway in. The train has to travel twice the distance the runner has to in the same time, therefore it is going twice as fast.

This also tells me that the train is 1/2 the length of the tunnel FROM the tunnel when the engineer hears it.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Cluin
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:10 PM

The lengtyh of the tunnel is moot; the ratio holds independent of distance.

Of course, the shorter the tunnel, the better the chance the runner can keep up his top speed. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: DMcG
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:14 PM

Well done. The train is indeed going twice as fast as he is i.e. 24mph. You've also managed to find probably the simplest way of explaining the result.

What is particularly nice about this puzzle is that it looks as if you haven't got enough information to work out the answer but when you think about it in the right way you get the answer without resorting to algebra or other "power tools."

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Cluin
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 02:15 PM

I confess I did try the algebra route first, but that was a bad idea because I'm lousy at it. I had trouble getting a equation and got a result of the train going -6 MPH. I had Xs and Ys and Zs.. what a mess.

Then I thought, "Hang On! This can't be that complicated; it's a friggin' brain-teaser, not a 3rd year Algebra exam bonus question." So I started from the other end, listing the things we DIDN'T know: speed of the train (which was the goal), how long the tunnel was, and how far the train was from the engineer (and the tunnel) when he heard it. That's when the light went on. It was easy after that.

Of course I didn't factor in for the speed of sound, or a coefficient for the difficulty of running flat out on gravel-littered railway ties in the dark, nor account for a hesitation factor based on the stupidity of an engineer who should have known better than to take a shortcut through a railway tunnel without checking the train schedule first.

But then, I've got other things to do today.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 02:18 PM

O.K then go again.....Hare and tortoise..Hare can run ten times faster than the tortoise but gives the tortoise a mile start over a two mile course....In reality the Hare would easily beat the tortoise but in theory it could never pass it...why??
Best wishes.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Cluin
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 02:19 PM

They are going in opposite directions.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 02:27 PM

No....but feasible answer of course....
Best wishes.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Cluin
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 02:44 PM

Because hares don't eat tortoise meat. Theoretically.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 04:15 PM

In actual fact, as I said, this is only theory and in practice would not work but.....When the hare has done a mile, the tortoise will have done a tenth of a mile......when the hare has done that tenth of a mile, the tortoise will have done a tenth of a tenth of a mile, etc etc but in theory the hare can never pass the tortoise eh??. In reality of course it would.
Best wishes.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Louie Roy
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 09:42 PM

In regards to the $1.00 missing where did it go. in the book I have on these trick questions it says and I quote the answer is supplied in the Bible (Few than Eight Have et) don't make sense to me but that is the answer the book gives

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 08:30 AM

Once again semantics.

Expressing the problem as relative rates of the two animals' velocities is misleading, as real animals don't behave like that. While the average relative speeds of the two may be in that ratio at the start, one is not checking on the other to see how fast or far it is 'allowed' to run! A more reasonable 'assumption' is that the relative speeds of the two animals would stay the same, so that one would have to pas the other in newtonian mechanics.

Of course if you have entered the field of quantum mechanics, things are not as 'intuitive' as that, and this problem may very well be a real problem in that field. You then would not be using the normal intellectual tools that you are used to using to solve this problem then as they are meaningless in this field.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: DMcG
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 08:43 AM

The "Hare and Tortoise" problem is known as "Zeno's paradox" and arises because the Greeks concerned could not fully grasp how an infinite series (10, 1, 0.1, 0.001, 0.0001 etc) where every term is greater than zero could have a finite total. Once you have the right mathematics in place the problem is resolved (except perhaps in quantum mechanics, of course!)

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 08:55 AM

each of them make a fine stew... enabling you to make the pleased comment of "Waiter! There's a Hare in my soup!"

Okay, I haven't had my coffee yet...

Brian

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Cluin
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 11:58 AM

Have your coffee, Brian.

Then come back and tell us what to tell the waiter about the tortoise soup.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 12:07 PM

Actually, I have been waiting for the tortoise soup all this time... and waiting.... and waiting...

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 12:15 PM

Mock Turtle maybe?

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Cluin
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 12:16 PM

Glad to be the Abbot to your Costello, the Martin to your Lewis, the Rowan to your Martin.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 07:11 AM

Abbot & Costello were the names of two Australian Federal Politicians who brought a defamation case to court in the last few years...

Yeah, the media had a good laugh too.. :-

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 09:39 AM

The !Rowan to your Martin"..You mean "Rowan and Martins laugh in" or do "Martin" Guitars now have wood in them from the "Rowan" (Mountain Ash) tree?
Best wishes.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Cluin
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 10:27 AM

No. The little known and ill-fated comedy team of Rowan Atkinson and Martin Lawrence. It didn't work out because one was very funny and the other was just annoying... no straight man. It was such a bad team-up that there was a restraining order and now they have to stay on separate continents.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 11:51 AM

Sorry Cluin, I was being flippant!
Best wishes.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 11:51 AM

DMcG: Re:the tunnel

Was this the engineer who finally came up with the idea of safety alcoves at various point in tunnels just for such an emergency?

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: DMcG
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 12:09 PM

No, I believe that was his widow shortly after they introduced 25mph trains.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Cluin
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 12:41 PM

Mike,

*grin*

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 03:15 PM

I'm still waiting for that soup... ready to kill if it doesn't arrive soon. It's probably bloody cold...

SO, could I justify cold-blooded murder for a bloody cold bowl of a cold blooded meal?

Brian

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Cattail
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 07:52 PM

Hi all.

If you havn't come across them before you may enjoy these two sites,
(there must be hundreds out there but these are the only ones I know
of.)

http://www.greylabyrinth.com/puzzles.htm

http://www.clickmazes.com/index.htm

Cheers for now

Cattail !

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Cluin
Date: 11 Dec 04 - 03:23 PM

Or these Matchstick puzzles.