Trick Mules Puzzle

Sam Loyd was only 17 when his “Trick Mules Puzzle” swept the country in 1858. He finally sold it to P.T. Barnum for $10,000.

Print this page and cut out the three pieces along the dashed lines. Now arrange them so that it looks like each jockey is riding a mule. You may overlap the pieces, but you mustn’t fold them.

It’s harder than it looks.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sam_Loyd%27s_Trick_Donkeys.gif

The Underpass

A large truck had become wedged under an underpass. The driver couldn’t move it backward or forward, and traffic was beginning to back up behind it.

He was on the point of desperation when a little boy approached him and offered a suggestion. A few minutes later the truck was on its way. What did the boy tell the driver?

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Down, Over, Up

If you start at the North Pole and walk one mile south, one mile east, and one mile north, you’ll find yourself back at your starting point.

The North Pole is not the only point with this property on Earth’s surface. In fact, there are any number of such points. Where are they?

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“The Four Sevens”

Another puzzle from Henry Ernest Dudeney:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16713/16713-h/16713-h.htm

“In the illustration Professor Rackbrane is seen demonstrating one of the little posers with which he is accustomed to entertain his class. He believes that by taking his pupils off the beaten tracks he is the better able to secure their attention, and to induce original and ingenious methods of thought. He has, it will be seen, just shown how four 5’s may be written with simple arithmetical signs so as to represent 100. Every juvenile reader will see at a glance that his example is quite correct. Now, what he wants you to do is this: Arrange four 7’s (neither more nor less) with arithmetical signs so that they shall represent 100. If he had said we were to use four 9’s we might at once have written 99 9/9, but the four 7’s call for rather more ingenuity. Can you discover the little trick?”

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