Scott
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Why would you need to say that? Where I live its normal for mothers and daughters to have the same surname. At least until the daughters marry.

Schik
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zex20913 wrote:
Just for future reference, if you submit the puzzle to any other sites or something, you need to make the statement that each set of mother and daughter shares the same last name. It could probably be misconstrued otherwise.

It's pretty obvious (to me, at least) that it's implied that they have they same last names. Without that assumption it's impossible to solve the puzzle.

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DiMono
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I think this is a society-dependant issue. There might be societies where the children get new last names, I don't know.

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zex20913
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I was actually thinking of the case where a married couple has a child (in this case, a daughter), and then they get divorced. If the mother remarries, the child will occasionally keep their original last name, instead of changing it with the mother's.

I know that the assumption need be made, but it ought still be stated. In most of the logic puzzles I do in magazines and whatnot, they say things like (Note: married couples have the same last names). It seems obvious, but it is a required assumption for the puzzle that is not always necessarily true in real life.

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Oneiromancer
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Okay, here's an oldie but goodie.

Connect all 9 dots using only 4 connected straight lines.

o  o  o
o  o  o
o  o  o

To clarify for those who haven't seen this before, imagine having this pattern on a piece of paper in front of you and connect the dots with 4 straight lines without your pencil leaving the paper. And yes, the lines may cross.

If it's easier, draw the solution in another program and attach the drawing as an attachment instead of using the code tags. (In fact that is probably preferred.)

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

Mattcrampy
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I know the trick to this one, so no puzzles from me. Tghank your lucky stars, because it would have been lame.

Matt

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What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

The_Red_Hawk
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Are we allowed to used our pencil to backtrack without counting that as a line?

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

Schik
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The_Red_Hawk wrote:
Are we allowed to used our pencil to backtrack without counting that as a line?

No.


____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

The_Red_Hawk
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File: Dots.png (2.4 KB)
Downloaded 157 times.
License: Other
From: Unspecified

I got it!

It's attached as a Paint file. The dots aren't completely in line, but I think it'll be enough.

[Edited by The_Red_Hawk on 12-30-2003 at 03:31 PM GMT]

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

Schik
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It's not my puzzle, but I've seen it enough to know you're correct - you're up!

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

The_Red_Hawk
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I wanted to post something really hard, but I can't think of one right now, so I'll just give you this one.

A man is three-eighths of the way across a train bridge when he hears a train approaching at 100 km/h. He can run for either side and just barely make it. How fast can he run? Prove it.

____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

Mattcrampy
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Okay, if he can run for either side and just barely make it both sides, it means the train is coming from behind him.

Now, if he runs backwards, he'll get off the bridge just as the train reaches the bridge. So then if he runs forwards, he'll get 6/8 (3/4) across the bridge before the train gets on the bridge.

So the train will do 8 eighths, doing 100km/h, in the same amount of time as the man does 2 eighths. So he must run a quarter of the speed of the train, or 25km/h.

That's one fast dude.

Matt, who now has to come up with a ripper puzzle

____________________________
What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

The_Red_Hawk
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____________________________
Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

mrimer
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I can do cartwheels at 25 km/h.

[Edited by mrimer on 12-30-2003 at 05:48 PM GMT]

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Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

Mattcrampy
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All right then, how's about this:

I have a really cool mobile (see diagram) on which I can hang a variety of toys via little hooks. The toys have very convenient weights - the heaviest toy is exactly 9 times the weight of the lightest toy, the second-lightest toy is twice the weight of the lightest toy, and the difference in weights between each consecutive toy (if they're lined up in order of weight) is the same.

Each rod of the mobile only balances if the torque of the weights hanging on each side is equal. Torque is calculated by the weight of the toy times the distance from the fulcrum. So a toy that weighs 100g needs to be twice as far from the fulcrum as a 200g toy. Where the rod has a string instead of a hook, the weight is the combined weight of the weights attached to that rod. (So a balanced rod with 6 pound, 3 pound and 2 pound toys on it would weigh 11 pounds. The rods are bamboo and the strings,well, string, so you can safely ignore their weight.)

In order from left to right, how should I place my toys so that the mobile is completely balanced?



There, if I make the puzzle description confusing, maybe it will take you longer to solve.

Matt

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What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

zex20913
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A coupla quick questions before I start:

Does every hook need be filled?

And in your diagram, the string second from the right is confusing to me. Is it attached to three rods, or just the 1st one from the top, and the third one? If it is three, is there a string that takes priority on the second rod?

____________________________

zex20913
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Never mind my questions! I have figured it out, assuming that the string second from the right is only attached to the top rod, and the third rod. The answer I got is:

8,6,3,1,9,5,2,7,4

1 represents the lightest, and 9 the heaviest. They go in increasing weight order.

I'll wait for an approval though, because I did make that assumption.

____________________________

Mattcrampy
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Every hook needs to be filled.

And that string is only attached to the top and third ones. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to fit properly without overlapping.

You'll notice that the strings only join up at the bumps on the bamboo.

Matt

____________________________
What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

Mattcrampy
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WHAT do I have to do to make a puzzle that lasts longer than an hour?

You're up.

Matt

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What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

zex20913
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I think what you have to do is wait to post until 3am central time, or so. Very few visit the forum then. I don't know what that would be in Australia...

Anyway, since it is my turn for a puzzle, I will find one.

It probably won't last an hour.

Use exactly two 2's to get 5. Any other mathematical symbols or functions are available. This is in base 10. You can not use any other numbers, except for those two 2s.

Good luck!

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Oneiromancer
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You're right, it didn't last an hour. The answer is:

sqrt[.2^(-2)]

The only reason I was able to solve it so quickly was that I realized that 1/.2 = 5. So, then, the question was how to replicate a reciprocal with another 2. Since a reciprocal is the same as raising the number to the power -1, just raise it to the power -2 and take the square root.

(For those people who like math problems, tell me another expression for the square root of the imaginary number i. The answer will be imaginary, of course, but it won't involve the square root of i.)

Here's my real puzzle (which also probably won't last an hour):

Rearrange the following letters so that you get one word:

EDORNOW

Game on,


[Edited by Oneiromancer on 12-30-2003 at 09:27 PM GMT]

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

Schik
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Oneiromancer wrote:
Rearrange the following letters so that you get one word:

EDORNOW

ONE WORD


____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

Oneiromancer
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Tricksy, he is...he guessed the right answer, he did.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

Schik
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On a remote island all of the natives belong to one of two tribes: the Brights, who are so brilliant at numerical calculations that they always get the correct answer, and the Braves, who bravely rush in to do calculations beyond their ability and never get the right answer. (The Braves are not entirely stupid: they can do simple counting and comparing of numbers, but they always get arithmetic calculations wrong.) Both Brights and Braves pride themselves on their complete honesty. They always tell the truth, or (in the case of Braves) at least what they believe to be the truth; they never purposely tell a lie (unlike the folks on some of those other islands).
One day a group of natives was playing a game of Numberskulls. There were 5 players and a moderator. The moderator, who was a Bright, painted a 3-digit number on each of the players' foreheads, so that each could see all numbers but their own. All 5 of the numbers were different. The moderator would ask them questions in turn about the numbers they could see, and from the answers they would try to deduce what number was on their own forehead. The first to do so was the winner. What follows is a record of the game, with questions omitted and players designated by letters.

(1) A: I see exactly 1 prime number.
(2) B: I see exactly 2 prime numbers.
(3) C: I see exactly 3 perfect squares.
(4) D: I see exactly 3 triangular numbers.
(5) E: I see exactly 3 perfect squares.

(6) A: I see exactly 3 numbers with a digital sum of 10.
(7) B: I see exactly 3 numbers whose square root is more than 25.
(8) C: I see exactly 0 numbers with a digital sum of 10.
(9) D: I see exactly 3 perfect cubes.
(10) E: I see exactly 0 numbers with a digital product of 18.

At this point one of the players announced his number and won. (Of course it was a Bright; for some reason Braves never win these games, a point of much amusement to the Brights!)

What number was on each player's forehead?


____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

Watcher
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A quick question about the puzzle:

Can the Braves correctly determine whether a number is a square, cube, prime, or triangular number?

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Today the refrigerator, tomorrow the world!

Schik
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No, those would be arithmetic (non-counting) calculations, so they would get them wrong.

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

Watcher
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One more, which I forgot to ask before:

Does the players know whether the other players are Brights or Braves?

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Today the refrigerator, tomorrow the world!

Schik
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Ah, good question. Yes, they do know. Sorry for not being clear.

Also, the children of people of either tribe have the same last names as their parents.

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

The_Red_Hawk
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What's a triangular number?

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Slashing, whirling, diving, twirling,
Snapping, turning, rising, swirling,
Screeching, flipping, gliding, sliding,
The red hawk's dance of death.

.....the king of the skies.....

Oneiromancer
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http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=triangular+number

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams