Breaking the News

In the December 2012 issue of 1 Across magazine, longtime crossword composer John Graham included a special instruction above one of his puzzles:

“I have 18dn of the 19; no 27, just 13 15; no 2 or 6 or 1dn 26 yet — plenty of 10, though I wouldn’t have chosen the timing.”

Solvers discovered that 18 down was CANCER and 19 across was OESOPHAGUS. The full message read:

“I have CANCER of the OESOPHAGUS; no CHEMOTHERAPY, just PALLIATIVE CARE; no NARCOTIC or STENT or MACMILLAN NURSE yet — plenty of MERRIMENT, though I wouldn’t have chosen the timing.”

The puzzle was reprinted as cryptic crossword No. 25,842 in the Guardian the following month.

“It seemed the natural thing to do somehow,” Graham said. “It just seemed right.” He died in November 2013, and the Guardian published a tribute crossword to remember him.

(Thanks, Anthony.)

December 3, 2015December 3, 2015 | Death · Puzzles

A Self-Enumerating Crossword

sallows crossword

Here’s a unique crossword puzzle by Lee Sallows. There are no clues — instead, each of the 12 entries must take the form [NUMBER](space)[LETTER](S), like so:

EIGHT BS
NINETEEN XS
ONE J

And so on. Can you complete the puzzle so that the finished grid presents an inventory of its own contents?

(A couple observations to get you started: Because the puzzle contains 12 entries, the solution will use only 12 letters. And one useful place to start is the shortest “down” entry, which is too short to be plural — it must be “ONE [LETTER]”.)

	Select Click for Answer
(Lee Sallows, “A New Type of Crossword Puzzle,” American Mathematical Monthly 94:7 [August-September 1987], 666; Joseph D.E. Konhauser, Dan Velleman, and Stan Wagon, Which Way Did the Bicycle Go?: And Other Intriguing Mathematical Mysteries, 1996, Problem 162.)

November 27, 2015February 22, 2018 | Puzzles

A Long Visit

Your tedious nephews, Kerry and Kelly, are not honest, but they’re orderly. One of them lies Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and tells the truth on other days, and the other lies on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and tells the truth on other days. At noon, they have the following conversation:

Kerry: I lie on Saturdays.

Kelly: I will lie tomorrow.

Kerry: I lie on Sundays.

On which day of the week does this conversation take place?

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No one lies on Sundays, so Kerry is lying today. That means it’s not Saturday, but rather Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. Kelly, who is telling the truth today, says he will lie tomorrow, so today must be Wednesday. Adapted from Crux Mathematicorum, May 1998.

November 25, 2015December 9, 2015 | Puzzles

Black and White

daniel chess problem

By Arthur William Daniel. White to mate in two moves.

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Only 1. Rc6! leads reliably to mate. From The British Chess Magazine, 1906.

November 23, 2015December 6, 2015 | Puzzles

Home Free

A baseball poser from Clark Kinnaird’s 1946 Encyclopedia of Puzzles and Pastimes:

“In a spring training game with the Dodgers at bat, the first man up hit a triple, the second man hit a double, the third man hit a double, the fourth man hit a single, the fifth man hit a single, the sixth man hit a single. Yet the Dodgers did not score a run in that inning. How could this have happened? These were the only men who went to bat in the inning.”

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“One way it could have happened — The first man, who hit a triple, was caught off third while the second man was at bat. One out. The second man hit a double. On the first pitch, he stole third. He was caught off the bag on the next pitch. Two out. The third man hit the next pitch for a double and stole third. The fourth man singled and stole second; the man on third wasn’t given an opportunity to get home. The fifth man got an infield hit, filling the bases. The sixth man drove a ball between first and second. The ball hit the man advancing to second, for an automatic out. The scorer gave the batter credit for a single. Six hits, no runs, no errors.” Related: How to win a set of tennis without hitting the ball.

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November 22, 2015December 6, 2015 | Puzzles

Tossing and Turning

Butler University mathematician Jerry Farrell has telekinesis. Here’s a demonstration. Toss a coin and enter the result (HEAD or TAIL) as 1 Across in the grid below. Then solve the rest of the puzzle:

farrell puzzle

Across                                   Down

1 Your coin shows a ______               1 Half a laugh
5 Wagner's earth goddess                 2 Station terminus?
6 Word with one or green                 3 Dec follower?
                                         4 Certain male

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Here’s the solution without your coin result: The fact that your result fits so neatly into the grid shows that Farrell controlled the coin flip. And how can he have done that but by telekinesis? (From Alan Connor, The Crossword Century, 2014. Related: a clairvoyant penny.)

November 18, 2015November 29, 2015 | Puzzles

Cover Story

On the floor of a room of area 5, you place 9 rugs. Each is an arbitrary shape but has area 1. Prove that there are two rugs that overlap by at least 1/9.

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Suppose that this isn’t true — that every pair of rugs overlaps by less than 1/9. Place the rugs on the floor one by one and note how much of the bare floor each succeeding rug must cover. The first rug must cover area 1, or 9/9. The second must cover an area greater than 8/9 (because less than 1/9 can overlap the first rug). The third rug can overlap the first two somewhat, but must still cover an area greater than 7/9 of the bare floor. And so on: The fourth, fifth, … ninth rug will cover an area greater than 6/9, 5/9, … 1/9 on the bare floor. Since 9/9 + … + 1/9 = 5, the nine rugs together must cover an area greater than 5. That’s a contradiction, so our supposition can’t be true — some pair of rugs must overlap by at least 1/9. From Arthur Engel, Problem-Solving Strategies, 1998.

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November 12, 2015November 22, 2015 | Puzzles

Black and White

speckmann chess problem

By W. Speckmann, 1973. White to mate in two moves.

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1. Bc3!, followed by 2. Bd2# or 2. Bxe5#.

November 9, 2015November 22, 2015 | Puzzles

Puzzling Lines

In his 1943 book The Life of Johnny Reb, Emory University historian Bell Wiley collects misspellings found in the letters of Confederate soldiers. Can you decipher these words?

agetent
bregad
cerce
crawsed
furteege
orpital
perperce
porchun
regislatury
ridgement

Bonus: What does A brim ham lillkern mean?

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adjutant brigade scarce crossed fatigue hospital purpose portion legislature regiment Bonus: Abraham Lincoln. Also: accitment for excitement, ceep for keep, coummling for Cumberland, dyereaer for diarrhea, experdission for expedition, eyedear for idea, forchin for fortune, horspitibel for hospitable, mungunry for Montgomery, pestearred for pestered, physitian for physician, rumatis for rheumatism, saft for safe, sity for city, snode for snowed, tords for towards, unbenoing for unbeknown, and wonst for once. Wiley writes, “The ordinary Reb was nearly always subject to greater defeat by a word like Chattanooga than by the Yankees.”

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October 31, 2015January 27, 2017 | History · Language · Puzzles

A Chess Maze

wurzburg chess puzzle

By O. Wurzburg, 1919. If Black does not move at all, in how few moves can the white king reach f4? White can move only his king; as in regular play, it can capture enemy pieces but cannot enter check.

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Seventy! In order to fulfill the task, the white king has to capture every black piece but the king while stepping carefully around the guarded squares. Ka4 2. 2. Ka5 3. Ka6 4. Kxa7 5. Kb6 6. Kc7 7. Kd7 8. Ke7 9. Kf7 10. Kg6 11. Kf5 12. Kg4 13. Kg3 14. Kf2 15. Ke1 16. Kd1 17. Kxc1 18. Kd1 19. Ke1 20. Kf2 21. Kg3 22. Kg4 23. Kf5 24. Kg6 25. Kf7 26. Ke7 27. Kd7 28. Kc7 29. Kb6 30. Ka5 31. Ka4 32. Ka3 33. Ka2 34. Kxa1 35. Ka2 36. Ka3 37. Ka4 38. Ka5 39. Kb6 40. Kc7 41. Kd7 42. Ke7 43. Kf7 44. Kg7 45. Kxh8 46. Kg8 47. Kf7 48. Ke8 49. Kd8 50. Kc8 51. Kb8 52. Kxa8 53. Kb7 54. Kc6 55. Kd5 56. Ke5 57. Kf5 58. Kg4 59. Kg3 60. Kg2 61. Kxh1 62. Kh2 63. Kh3 64. Kg4 65. Kh5 66. Kh6 67. Kxh7 68. Kg6 69. Kxg5 70. Kf4 From Stephen Addison, The Book of Extraordinary Chess Problems, 1989.

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October 27, 2015November 8, 2015 | Puzzles