BS: Puzzles. can you help me?

Subject: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: *Laura*
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 05:28 PM

I have two puzzles - one really annoys me becasue I can't work it out! The other I just find interesting to think about.
Ok - annoying one:

There's three guys who live together and they want a TV - they find on in a shop for £30. (£10 each) and buy it.
Later on the sales assistant tells the manager he's sold the TV for £30 and the manager tells him it was only supposed to be £25 because it was in the sale. He gives the sales guy a fiver to take round to give to the three guys who bought the TV. But the sales assistant thisnk - I'll give them back a pound each and keep two for myself - they won't know.
So he gives each guy back £1 and keeps two. they have all now paid £9 for the TV - which makes a total of £27, and the sales assistant kept £2, which is a total of £29 - WHERE DID THE OTHER POUND GO!?!?!?!?!?!?
Maths is not my strong point!

The other one is - "If a tree falls in the middle of a forest when there's no one there - does it still make a sound? i.e. how can sound exist if there's no one there to hear it?"

xLx

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 05:35 PM

They have actually paid £27 but you need to take off the £2 not add it to realise that the shopkeeper has £25..........O.K?
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 05:35 PM

"how can sound exist if there's no one there to hear it"

Sound is a vibration in the air... it doesn't need an observer in order to exist...

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Peace
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 05:38 PM

They paid 30 pounds. That is 10 pounds each. When the 5 pounds is taken off, it is supposed to be divided three ways. 5/3=1.66 pounds.
The guy taking the mone to them only gives each a pound and not 1.66 pounds as he's supposed to. There's the rub.

If it falls and there's no woman to hear, is the man still wrong?

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Peace
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 05:49 PM

Here it is more clearly.

Each paid 10 pounds. When they are supposed to be given 5/3 pounds back, the unscrupulous guy should be giving each 1.66 pounds. Really, he just gives them 1 pound each and keeps the other 2 (which is .66 x 3). So, they paid 25, got 3 abck which means they paid 28 pounds. Add the 2 pounds the bad guy kept and there is your 30 pounds: 25 + 3 + 2 = 30.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 06:00 PM

Funnily enough, the tree question cropped up yesterday on another board. What I said was:

"Actually, the correct answer to that particular bloody stupid question is "Does it matter? I'll worry about that fallen tree if it's in my way when I cross the forest..."

Very philosophical answer that... Pisses the philosophers off no end... "

As to the maths, the answer presumes that the 3 guys paid £25 between them (which they didn't - they paid £10 each). What Bruce says is right, if argued from the worng end. The buyers ought to have paid £8.33 each. The rep pockets 67p from each, which is £2 all told, the buyers pay £9.33 a piece, which is £28. £28 + £2 = £30. Easy.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Peace
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 06:11 PM

It is NOT easy to make that pound sign.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 06:17 PM

Yes, but you're monetarily challenged, Bruce. It's alright. It's not your fault... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Peace
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 06:19 PM

Ya crazy bugger. ;-

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 06:28 PM

Your point is (I'm sorry, but I can't wait long enough for you to spell it in dollars...)?

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: GUEST,mack/misophist
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 06:30 PM

The tree bit is quite old. Bishop Berkeley started it, I think. The answer depends on how you want to define sound. And whether you want to bring in the quantum observer effect. I suggest you don't.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Peace
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 06:31 PM

lol

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: *Laura*
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 07:02 PM

Yes, but if you do it with little bits of paper (as I did in a free lesson at college the other day - not on my own I might add) then it doesn't work. I'm sorry, I am literally mindned. I like words.
Give me a bit of Shakespeare to interpret - no problem. A page of numbers? (or even just a few like this) and I'm gone.
I just don't understand where the pound goes. I mean, I know they only paid £27 in the end - but where did the actual pound coin that made up the £30 - where did that go?

And Clinton - yes, but if there is no one around to recieve the vibrations and hear them as sound - ten are they sound? or are they just random vibrations?

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

Such puzzles like the 'tree' one all go back to semantics - just what do the words like 'sound' really mean. If your definition of 'sound' implies that it must be heard to be detected, then ....

And if your definition of 'sound' just means an energy waveform, then....

Such puzzles are 'paradoxes' - the solution to such 'paradoxes' is to check the definitions of the terms carefully - you will always find at least two conflicting assumptions in the definitions of the words.

Bertrand Russell came up with some good ones.

One of his best is about the signs in a park which all show the location of all other signs but themselves. However at the entrance is a sign that shows all the locations of all the signs in the park that do not show the location of themselves. Should this sign show its own location?   


:-)

Robin
Scribe for The Fooles Troupe
(who keep arguing endlessly about such nonsense!)

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Cluin
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 08:05 PM

Let X = the price each guy paid (which is 10 of course)
We'll see if it works out.

3X = 30

subtract the 5 from the price:   3 X - 5 = 30 - 5

3X - 5 = 25

subtract the skimmed 2 bucks from the refund: (3X - 3) - 2 = 25

transfer the skimmed ill-gotten booty to the other side of the equation: 3X - 3 = 25 + 2

3X - 3 = 27

Divide all parts by 3: 3X/3 - 3/3 = 27/3

X - 1 = 9

X = 9 + 1 = 10

It all works out. Georgiansilver was right. You need to subtract the 2 bucks pilfered, not add it.
                        

The other one is a philosophical conundrum, a Zen Koan, not a scientific question. Of course the falling tree makes a sound.
The more interesting question is: Does the effect of the listener aprehending a sound and interpreting it as a falling tree change the result of the experiment?

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 04 Dec 04 - 08:49 PM

Whats a Quantum ?

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Little Robyn
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 03:13 AM

Hi Laura,
Cluin is too clever for me. I think that was an answer for left-brained people but I'm right-brained. I suspect you are too!
The way I see it, they each paid 10 pound (I only have a $ sign on my keyboard), they were each given 1 pound back, that makes 27 pound, but the shopkeeper only got 25 pound.
Where did the other 2 pound go? That was what the assistant pocketed! Does that make sense now?
Robyn

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 04:04 AM

Alternatively.

Till Got £25 + shopkeeper stole £2 = Men paid £30 - £3 refund = £27

You should see from that that when you add your £2 to the £27 the men paid (with refund), you are accounting for the same £2 twice as has already been accounted for on the left side of the equation. In other words, the question tricks you into adding things together that shouldn't be in search of the £30 answer. If you wanted to arive at £30 balancing, just do a simple bit of algebra on the equation, taking the £3 to the other side.

Till Got £25 + shopkeeper stole £2 + £3 refunded = Men Paid £30

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 04:28 AM

Yes but they paid £10 each. Then got a pound back each. That IS three nines, and the two pounds......

I don't get it either.

However my inability to get it will not keep me worrying. as for the tree, I simply don't understand what you don't understand.....

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 04:36 AM

Yes they paid £10 pounds each and got a pound back with makes £27. Where you are going wrong is trying to add the £2 to the £27. The £27 the men paid is made up of £25 in the till and £2 stolen.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 09:26 AM

a-ha!!!!
well done!

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: *Laura*
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 01:18 PM

so what about the last three pounds?

(Now you begin to understand the endless circles I went through last year in GCSE maths!)

Ooh - hang on, so is it the £25 in the till, the £2 stolen, and the £3 refund?

I... err, I think I understand.
It does help seeing lots of different explanations! cheers everyone :-)

xlx

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Little Robyn
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 01:42 PM

You got it!
Robyn

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: dianavan
Date: 05 Dec 04 - 09:19 PM

Sound exists, silence does not. Maybe the birds heard it.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: *Laura*
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 04:29 PM

no-one heard it.

ahh - the maths looks so simple now! clarity and light and... clarity. (and I said I was better with words)

If there was absolutely no-one to hear it - do the vibrations it makes when it hits other things count as sound vibrations?

xLx

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 04:46 PM

I think the tree was heard pounding thrice on the door of the TV shop saying, "Wood ye listen to me?!?"

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 04:49 PM

Sound exists whether you are there to hear it or not!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: *Laura*
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 04:52 PM

how? if sound is something someone (person/animal/whatever) HEARS - then how can it be more than just vibrations unless there is something/someone there to turn those vibrations into something they can hear?

ahaaaahhh.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 05:02 PM

Laura....

if a blind person paints something on the canvas, does it only exists once someone views it? nay, sez I!   Sound, as it was mentioned early, is not dependent on a receiver, but exists in itself.

Ergo, ipsofacto, makinItUppoAsIgoAlongo, are you saying if I was blasting my stereo at a deaf person, the sound doesn't exist until my neighbor comes in and screams at me for playing that garbage?


Brian.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: robomatic
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 06:22 PM

I first heard that story as a room rental to three people who paid $30 (Gee, there's no problem with the dollar sign, must be an 'Anglo' thing) for a night in a hotel, the clerk realized he'd overcharged by $5 and gave it to the bellboy, who on his way up to the room realized the three customers would be grateful to get ANY money so he gave each of 'em $1. That item drove me CRAZY. It percolated through my tiny mind for literally years. I figured it out in an 'AHA' moment during a vacation in London of all places on the top of one of those dear old double decker buses that Flanders and Swann sang about, this one had an open top.

I hear those buses are being or have been done away with, so fear greatly that there will be a reduction in ratiocination at automotive elevations.

Cheerio.

(Now if I could only figure out why mirrors switch left with right, but not top with bottom? Wonder if any of those busses work on our side...)

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 08:58 PM

what if helen keller were to fall in the forest
would she make a sound?

bertrand russel had another variation on the sign problem.

in a little village in the swiss alps there is a particularly zealous
barber. This barber shaves all those who do not shave themselves.
Question is, who shaves the barber?

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: HuwG
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 10:43 PM

The tree question ...

As someone way up-thread said, it all depends on how you define "sound". Let us assume that "sound" is the generic name for all vibrations in air. The falling tree makes sound.

(We could arbitrarily say that "sound" must be between certain limits, 20Hz to 20,000Hz which is the lower and higher auditory limit for humans, in which case we are invalidating the general all-inclusive nature of sound. However, a tree falling will make sound audible to humans, were there any around to hear it.)

If we define certain types of air vibration by qualities which are in turn defined by human capabilities and perceptions, then we encounter logical conundrums. Does a CD player in the forest make "music" (assuming a power source) if there is nobody to hear it ? (Obviously not if it's playing a Kylie Minogue CD.) Again, we can say that since the non-Minogue CD was intended to replicate sounds which a human listener would accept from experience and teaching as, "music", the unattended CD player is making music, though it won't get much for the gig.

How about a series of random noises generated by a synthesiser triggered by events such as nearby trees hitting the ground ? Would a human listener accept this as music, or dismiss it as mere random noise (or a Kylie Minogue performance) ?



I believe that Bertrand Russell's poser was better described in the context of a central library. The central library requires its local libraries to catalogue all the books they have. Some local libraries include the catalogue itself in the catalouge, some don't.

The librarian makes a catalogue of all those catalogues which do not include themselves. Ah ! Does (s)he include the catalogue of catalogues which do not include themselves in the catalogue of catalogues which do not include themselves ? If (s)he does, then the catalogue of catalogues which do not include themselves cannot be filed with the catalogues which do not include themselves, since it is no longer a catalogue which does not include itself. On the other hand, if (s)he does not include the catalogue of catalogues which do not include themselves in the catalogue of catalogues which do not include themselves, then the catalogue of catalogues which do not include themselves will be incomplete.

Over to you, any student of Russell's.

Do I get my Golden Onion award ?

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Peace
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 10:46 PM

Brought me to tears.

The sentence below this is false.
The sentence above this is true.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Peace
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 10:52 PM

"Now if I could only figure out why mirrors switch left with right, but not top with bottom?"

Ya got the mirror upside down.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Louie Roy
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 11:21 PM

since we are on puzzles I'll throw this one in for the computer whiz What number when divided by 10 leaves a remaider of 9 when divided by 9 leaves a remainder of 8 when divided by 8 leaves a remainder of 7 when divided by 7 leaves a remainde of 6 when divided by 6 leaves a remainder of 5 when divided by 5 leaves a remainde of 4 when divided by 4 leaves a remaider of 3 when divided by 3 leaves a remainder of 2 when divided by 2 leaves a remainder of 1

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: DMcG
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 07:36 AM

2519 is the smallest positive number, but if you want to be cunning and define things in the right way, -1 will also work.

When the Ada language was being devised, one thing that was investigated was how people thought modular arithmetic should work on integers.   Which of the following should be true?

i) A = (A mod B)*B + (A rem B)

ii) (A rem B) is between 0 and B (excluding B)

iii) (-A) mod B = -(A mod B)


Once you have decided, make up a little table with columns A, B, A mod B and A rem B and try these

A      B
7      3
7      -3
-7    3
-7    -3

and then check out your rules!

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Louie Roy
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 01:56 PM

Very accurate and well documented DMcG.The highest grade I can give you is A++++++++

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 02:22 PM

If it takes 2 men a month to work a fortnight how many bananas in a bunch of grapes?

If the tree fell it couldn't have been very sound in the first place!

Another proper maths one - What temperature is the same in both farenheit and centigrade?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Bert
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 02:35 PM

brucie, if you want your mirror to transpose from top to bottom; all you have to do is lie on your side.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 03:03 PM

-40

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: *Laura*
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 03:35 PM

But Brian - just becasue ONE person can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. But it depends how you define sound - if you define it as vibrations then it does make a sound, if you define it as ONLY vibrations and not sound until someone HEARS it then it doesn't make a sound!

Is there a right or wrong definition does anyone know?

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 04:30 PM

ah but Laura, there are other vibrations that aren't necessarily sounds... (Call me for more info, heh heh heh)

oops, me bad.

okay... sound:
   1. Vibrations transmitted through an elastic solid or a liquid or gas, with frequencies in the approximate range of 20 to 20,000 hertz, capable of being detected by human organs of hearing.
   2. Transmitted vibrations of any frequency.
   3. The sensation stimulated in the organs of hearing by such vibrations in the air or other medium.
   4. Such sensations considered as a group.

So, the primary definition refers to being capable of being detected.... so the sound is exists upon action, not the reaction. Or something like that.

Brian.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Chris Green
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 07:08 PM

If enough trees fall down in the forest when there's no-one around, does this mean that lumberjacks are out of a job?

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 07:43 PM

well if that tree fell in space there would be no sound.

none of those space ships in starwars would either.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: Peace
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 10:32 PM

We really need William Shatner to solve this for us.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 11:44 PM

A philosopher once stated, "God
Must find it exceedingy odd
To note that the tree
Still continues to be
When there's no-one about in the quad."










answered by:








Dear sir, I don't find it so odd.
I am always about in the quad.
And that's why the tree
Still continues to be
As perceived by, yours faithfully, God.

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: DMcG
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 03:40 AM

Vibrations transmitted through an elastic solid or a liquid or gas, with frequencies in the approximate range of 20 to 20,000 hertz, capable of being detected by human organs of hearing.

So, the primary definition refers to being capable of being detected.... so the sound is exists upon action, not the reaction.

That may be a good enough definition for a general dictionary, but that business about 'approximately' and 'capable of being detected by human hearing' is not on for a scientific definition.

In any sizeable group of people, there will be a frequency that some can hear and some cannot. All well and good, that is still a 'sound' by the definition. Raise the frequency so that only one person can still hear it - it is still a sound. Now take every living person in the world as the group and there will still be a frequency that only one person can hear, but its still a sound. Now, let that person develop a bad cold, or die, and that frequency, which was previously a sound (because it was capable of being heard) is no longer capable of being heard by anyone. Is it no longer a sound?

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 10:54 AM

Good point, DMcG... I think it goes back to what I said, that the sound is created once the action occurs (the vibration happens), as opposed to when it is reacted to (the receiver "hears" it)... but yes, it was a pretty weak definition, but it was all I could get off the 'net at the time!

anyways, anyone have anymore puzzles?

Brian

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: DMcG
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:10 AM

This was on a programme called "Mind Games" recently.

An engineer was walking through a railway tunnel. When he was a quarter of the way through the tunnel he heard a train approaching from some way behind him.

The train was travelling at such a speed that if the engineer were to run back the way he came in he would just make it out off the tunnel before the train entered. If he ran the other way he would also just make it out of the far end of the tunnel before the train caught him.
Question

If the engineer, at full sprint, was running at 12 miles per hour, how fast was the train going?

Subject: RE: BS: Puzzles. can you help me?
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:39 AM

Does it make a difference on the length of the tunnel?

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.