From Clark Kinnaird’s Encyclopedia of Puzzles and Pastimes, 1946:
Though a great American, Wendell Willkie nevertheless lacked one of the four necessary requirements for becoming President of the United States. One must be at least 35, a native-born American, and a resident of the U.S.A. for at least 14 years. Name the fourth requirement which Willkie also lacked?
Two old chestnuts:
1. I have six pieces of chain, each consisting of four links. It costs 10 cents to cut open one link and 25 cents to weld it together again. What will it cost to have the six pieces joined into one chain?
2. The two volumes of my scintillating autobiography stand side by side in order on a shelf. A bookworm starts at page 1 of volume 1 and eats his way in a straight line to the last page of volume 2. If each cover is 1/8 of an inch thick, and each book without the covers is 2 inches thick, how far does the bookworm travel?
And two trick questions:
1. What is the name of the title character in The Merchant of Venice?
2. Who played Frankenstein in the 1931 American film?
Some of the figures (particularly the holy ones) in El Greco paintings seem unnaturally tall and thin. An ophthalmologist surmised that the painter had a defect of vision that caused him to see people this way.
The zoologist Sir Peter Medawar pointed out that we can reject this conjecture on purely logical grounds. What was his insight?
Samuel Isaac Jones offered this poser in his 1929 book Mathematical Wrinkles:
Cook was within 10 miles of the north pole and Peary was also within 10 miles of the pole, but 20 miles from Cook. What direction was Peary from Cook? Suppose Peary threw a ball at Cook and hit him. In what direction did the ball go?
He omitted the answer, apparently inadvertently. What is it?
By Bruno Sommer, 1910. White has just moved, and he realizes too late that he could have mated Black on the move. What was his last move, and what was the mate?
A family of four has to cross a river. The father and mother each weigh 150 pounds, and each of the two sons weighs 75 pounds. Unfortunately, the boat will carry only 150 pounds maximum. How can they get across?
I don’t play bridge, so I’m posting this somewhat blindly. It was devised by W.H. Whitfeld, card editor of the Field, apparently in the late 19th century. The reader who submitted it to the Strand wrote, “If you don’t know the solution, I guarantee that it will take you or any of your staff three or four days.”
“We have a higher opinion of our readers’ skill than to allot them such a time-limit as this,” wrote the editors. “But certainly anyone who can solve this problem in three or four hours will have good cause to be congratulated on his ingenuity.”
When the Chevalier de Rohan was sent to the Bastille in 1674 on suspicion of treason, he knew there was no evidence against him except what might be extracted from one other prisoner. His friends had promised to communicate the result of that examination, and in sending him some fresh clothing they wrote on one of the shirts MG DULHXCCLGU GHJ YXUJ, LM CT ULGC ALJ.
For 24 hours de Rohan puzzled over the message, but he could make no sense of it. Despairing, he admitted his guilt and was executed. What was the message?
