Tableau

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/29820

Mr. X, who thinks Mr. Y a complete idiot, walks along a corridor with Mr. Y just before 6 p.m. on a certain evening, and they separate into two adjacent rooms. Mr. X thinks that Mr. Y has gone into Room 7 and himself into Room 8, but owing to some piece of absent-mindedness Mr. Y has in fact entered Room 6 and Mr. X Room 7. Alone in Room 7 just before 6, Mr. X thinks of Mr. Y in Room 7 and of Mr. Y‘s idiocy, and at precisely 6 o’clock reflects that nothing that is thought by anyone in Room 7 at 6 o’clock is actually the case. But it has been rigorously proved, using only the most general and certain principles of logic, that under the circumstances supposed Mr. X just cannot be thinking anything of the sort.

— A.N. Prior, “On a Family of Paradoxes,” Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, 1961

| Science & Math

The Five Rooms

five rooms

Here’s the floor plan of a house with five rooms. Can you draw a continuous line that passes through each of the 16 wall segments once and once only? If it’s possible, show how; if it’s not, explain why.

Click for Answer
| Puzzles

“Sonnet From the Brooklynese”

My heart is gayly purzed as if it wuy
Ra buyd about to dart in jeryous flight
To you; my darling, may it but alight
On vuygin surl. And may it not incuy
Your anger or disdain. ‘Tis but a fleuy
D’amour, and if you spuyn it you will blight
Its life as if some purzon in the night
Had been instilled into its depths. You stuy
My soul into a tuymurl. If you’ve turyed
With me, I fain would hie me to a clurster,
Wherein my heart would never be annuryed
By thoughts of love. My eyes grow murst and murster
At contemplating such an aching vurd —
O grant me, then, the sang-froid of an urster.

— Margaret Fishback, One to a Customer, 1937

| Language · Poems

Alphabet Blocks

http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/42700/42768/cubes-6_42768.htm

We have 27 wooden cubes. The first is marked A on every face, the second B, and so on through the alphabet to Z. The 27th cube is blank. Is it possible to assemble these cubes into a 3×3×3 cube with the blank cube at the center, arranging them so that cube A adjoins cube B, cube B adjoins cube C, and so on, forming a connected orthogonal path through the alphabet?

Click for Answer
| Puzzles

Flak

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Traian_vuia_flying_machine.jpg

Letter to the Times, April 27, 1910:

Sir,

Motor-cars are bad enough, but they do not come into one’s house or garden. With aeroplanes total strangers may drop in, through the roof, for a little chat at any time. I fear the law cannot protect one against such intrusion. If aviation becomes popular I shall have spikes, with long strong prongs, fixed on the chimneys of my house, and the word ‘Danger’ painted in large red letters on a flat part of the roof. If any flying machines come down in my garden I shall send for the police to remove the occupants, whom I shall sue afterwards for any damage to my trees or shrubs.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

H.B. Devey

| Society · Technology

Homecoming

tod carter

Confederate officer Tod Carter had been away from home for three years when he found himself crossing into his beloved Tennessee in late 1864 with Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood. As they approached his hometown of Franklin, Carter received permission to pass ahead and visit his family, but he found that Federal forces had commandeered the house to serve as headquarters in the coming battle. Miserably he returned to camp.

On Nov. 30, while Carter’s family and friends cowered in the house’s stone basement, Hood’s forces collided with those of Union general John Schofield. The battle produced 10,000 casualties in five hours; around the house men fought viciously with bayonets, rifle butts, axes, and picks. Carter’s older brother Moscow later wrote, “While the terrible din of the battle lasted it seemed to the adults that they must die of terror if it did not cease, but when there was a lull the suspense of fearful expectation seemed worse than the sound of battle.”

As a quartermaster, Tod might have been spared the danger; his duties did not involve combat. But, wrote Ralph Neal in a company history, “It was on the first charge and when nearest the enemy’s works that Capt. Todd Carter dashed through our lines on his horse with drawn sword, made straight for his father’s house, and met his death as it were, on the very threshold of his parental home. He was perhaps not more than fifty feet from us when he fell; his horse was seen to plunge and we knew he was struck. Captain Carter was thrown straight over the horse’s head, his sword reached as far as his arm would allow toward the enemy, and when he struck the ground he laid still, and his brave young life went out almost at the door of his home.”

“The sight of home and all that makes home dear, and that home in possession of the enemy caused him to forget himself, and under the impulse of the moment he rushed to certain death.”

| History

“Double Bluff”

Said Watson to Holmes, “Is it wise —
Such false whiskers when hunting for spies?”
Said the sleuth, “I’m afraid
You’re as dense as Lestrade:
I’m disguised as myself in disguise.”

— R.J.P. Hewison, Punch, Nov. 21, 1951

| Poems

Manual Labor

Dick and Jane are playing a game. Each holds up one or two fingers. If the total number of fingers is odd, then Dick pays Jane that number of dollars. If it’s even, then Jane pays Dick:

manual labor

At first blush this looks fair, but in fact it’s distinctly favorable for Jane. Let p be the proportion of times that Jane holds up one finger. Her average winnings when Dick holds up one finger are -2p + 3(1 – p), and her average winnings when he holds up two fingers are 3p – 4(1 – p). If she sets those equal to one another she gets p = 7/12. This means that if she raises one finger with probability 7/12, then on average she’ll win -2(7/12) + 3(5/12) = 1/12 dollar every round, no matter what Dick does. Dick’s best strategy is also to raise one finger 7/12 of the time, but the best this can do is to restrict his loss to 1/12 dollar on average. It’s not a fair game.

| Science & Math