A Southern Education

Sentence completion exercises from Levi Branson’s First Book in Composition, 1863:

_______ is a Confederate State.

Gen. _______ reduced Fort Sumter.

South Carolina is the greatest _______ country in the Confederate States.

Louisiana raises more _______ than any other State in the Confederacy.

Abraham Lincoln led _______ people into war.

Jefferson Davis defended _______ country bravely, and deserves great applause for _______ patriotism.

General Stuart _______ started in pursuit; he _______ overtook the enemy, _______ led on the attack in person, and gained a complete victory.

General Lee defeated the Yankees, _______ his army was much smaller _______ theirs.

I saw the Confederate flag _______ from the City Hall.

From Marinda Branson Moore’s Dixie Speller, 1864:

It makes us sad to hear the booming of cannon in time of war. We think of our dear friends who are in the army, and fear they may be killed.

War is a sad thing, and those who bring it about will have much to answer for.

Some people lay all the blame at the door of the rulers of the nation. In some countries this is true, but in our country it is not so. The people elect their own rulers, and they should not choose bad men. If the rulers in the United States had been good Christian men, the present war would not have come upon us.

The people sent bad men to Congress, and they were not willing to make just laws, but were selfish, and made laws to suit themselves.

The Bible says “When the wicked bear rule the nation mourneth, but when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice.”

People often do wrong, and when trouble comes upon them, they say God sent it.

God has made good laws for man, and if we do right we will be happy; but sin will always bring trouble.

Let every boy learn this lesson, and when he is a man, let him not vote for a bad man to fill an office of trust. — Then the men who wish to be in office will strive to be good, and the nation will be happy.

December 22, 2015December 20, 2015 | History · Society

Podcast Episode 86: Lateral Thinking Puzzles

Here are six new lateral thinking puzzles to test your wits and stump your friends — play along with us as we try to untangle some strange situations using only yes-or-no questions.

See full show notes …

December 21, 2015October 19, 2017 | Podcast · Puzzles

A Second Career

bormann wonka

In Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), just after Charlie buys a chocolate bar, he discovers a commotion at a newsstand: The finder of the fifth ticket, a “gambler from Paraguay,” has been declared a fraud.

“Can you imagine the nerve of that guy, trying to fool the whole world?” says one man.

“Boy, he really was a crook,” says another.

The man pictured in the newspaper is Martin Bormann, Adolf Hitler’s private secretary.

December 20, 2015December 19, 2015 | Entertainment

Express

This paragraph jumped out at me last night from B.G. Wilson’s Unusual Railways (1958) — he’s writing about the Mount Washington Cog Railway in New Hampshire, one of the world’s steepest, with an average grade of 25 percent:

Before leaving this line, mention must be made of a method of riding down the track employed by track maintenance men and long since banned. Wood and metal seats some 3 ft. × 1 ft. were made to fit over the rack rail. These were known as slide-boards, or more popularly, as ‘Devil’s Shingles’. Seated on these, controlling (sometimes) the speed with hand brakes, the men would career down the mountainside. The record time for the trip — as we have said, 3 1/4 miles — was 2 3/4 minutes!

That’s 70 mph! For comparison, the modern train takes 40 minutes to descend at 4.6 mph. And this was in the late 19th century — the railway opened in August 1869. Wilson writes, “After one man had been killed and another seriously injured, the Devil’s Shingles were banned.” I don’t know any more than that.

December 19, 2015December 18, 2015 | Oddities · Technology

All Hands on Deck?

A reader named Hamp Stevens sent this conundrum to Martin Gardner, who published it in his Mathematical Magic Show (1965). Can these 25 cards be arranged to form five poker hands, each of them a straight or better (that is, straight, flush, full house, four of a kind, straight flush, or royal flush)? If it’s possible, find the five hands; if it’s not, prove that it’s impossible.

“This ingenious puzzle is quickly solved if you go about it correctly,” Gardner wrote. “A single card is the key.”

	Select Click for Answer
The key is the 4 of hearts. There is no 3 or 5 present, so the 4 of hearts can’t be part of a straight. There are only three other hearts, so it can’t be part of a flush. It’s the only 4 in the set, so it can’t be part of a full house. And the set contains no four cards of the same value, so the four of hearts can’t be the fifth card accompanying four of a kind.

December 18, 2015January 3, 2016 | Puzzles

Fitting

arc lengths

If two unit circles are tangent externally as shown, and from a point P on one circle rays PQ and PR are drawn intersecting both circles, then arc lengths x + y = z.

From Claudi Alsina and Roger B. Nelsen, Icons of Mathematics, 2011.

December 17, 2015December 15, 2015 | Science & Math

Black and White

carpenter chess problem

By George Edward Carpenter. White to mate in two moves.

	Select Click for Answer
1. Qh3! Ke4 2. Rc4# From the Dubuque Chess Journal, 1873.

December 17, 2015December 27, 2015 | Puzzles

Hard Target

In a special football game, a team scores 7 points for a touchdown and 3 points for a field goal. What’s the largest mathematically unreachable number of points that a team can score (in an infinitely long game)?

	Select Click for Answer
Eleven. For any integer n greater than that, the possible remainders when n is divided by 3 are 0, 1, and 2. If the remainder is 0, then we can get to n by scoring field goals. If the remainder is 1, then n – 13 has remainder 0 and we can reach n by scoring one touchdown and some number of field goals. And if the remainder is 2, then n – 14 has remainder 0 and we can get to n by scoring two touchdowns and some number of field goals. Put simply, all integers n greater than 11 can be written in the form n = 7a + 3b for some nonnegative integers a and b.

Click for Answer

December 16, 2015December 27, 2015 | Puzzles

Unquote

la rochefoucauld

More maxims of François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680):

“We always love those who admire us; but we don’t always love those whom we admire.”
“There are people who would never have been in love, if they had never heard talk of Love.”
“The Generality of People judge of Men by their Reputation, or Fortune.”
“Men would not live long in Society, if they were not the mutual Dupes of one another.”
“Titles, instead of exalting, debase those who don’t act up to them.”
“Prosperity is a stronger Trial of Virtue than Adversity.”
“Weak People can’t be sincere.”
“‘Tis more difficult to be faithful to a Mistress when on good Terms with her, than when on bad.”
“‘Tis not so dangerous to do Ill to most Men as to do them too much Good.”
“A Man often imagines he acts, when he is acted upon; and while his Mind aims at one thing, his Heart insensibly gravitates towards another.”
“When great Men suffer themselves to be subdued by the Length of their Misfortunes, they discover that the Strength of their Ambition, not of their Understanding, was what supported them; and that, bating a little Vanity, Heroes are just like other Men.”
“Cunning and Treachery proceed from Want of Capacity.”
“If we took as much Pains to be what we ought, as we do to deceive others by disguising what we are; we might appear as we are, without being at the Trouble of any Disguise.”

And “‘Tis a Mistake to imagine that only the violent Passions, such as Ambition and Love, can triumph over the rest. Laziness, languid as it is, often masters them all; she indeed influences all our Designs and Actions, and insensibly consumes and destroys both the Passions and the Virtues.”

December 16, 2015December 15, 2015 | Quotations

Pleased, I’m Sure

A problem by Atlantic College mathematician Paul Belcher:

Anna and Bert invite n other couples to a dinner party. Before the meal begins, some people shake hands. No one shakes hands with their own partner, no one shakes hands with themselves, and no two people shake hands with each other more than once. Afterward, Anna asks all the other 2n + 1 people how many times they shook hands, and she gets a different answer from each of them. How many times did Anna shake hands?

	Select Click for Answer
Altogether there are 2n + 2 people at the party. None shakes hands with themselves or their partner, so the maximum number of handshakes that one person could have participated in is 2n, and the minimum is 0. Anna receives a different answer from each of the 2n + 1 people she asks, so the answers she gets must be 0, 1, 2, …, 2n. Let the person who shook hands 2n times be called Max and the person who shook hands 0 times be called Minie (making no assumptions about gender). Max must have shaken hands with everyone but his or her own partner. Since Max has shaken hands with Anna, Max cannot be Bert and Max’s partner must be Minie. Now remove Max and Minie and all their handshakes. This decreases by 1 the number of handshakes that each of the others participated in, and leaves us facing essentially the same problem but with n – 1 other couples. If we repeat this process, eventually we’re left with Anna and Bert as the only two people remaining. In that situation, neither of them shakes hands. And since one handshake disappeared as each of the other n couples was removed from the problem, both Anna and Bert have shaken hands n times. (Paul Belcher, “But What Colour Are Anna’s Eyes?”, Mathematical Gazette 87:509 [July 2003], 322-323.)

Click for Answer

December 15, 2015December 27, 2015 | Puzzles