Quick Thinking

From a letter by Lewis Carroll, about 1848:

I have not yet been able to get the second volume Macaulay’s ‘England’ to read. I have seen it however and one passage struck me when seven bishops had signed the invitation to the pretender, and King James sent for Bishop Compton (who was one of the seven) and asked him ‘whether he or any of his ecclesiastical brethren had anything to do with it?’ He replied, after a moment’s thought ‘I am fully persuaded your majesty, that there is not one of my brethren who is not as innocent in the matter as myself.’

“This was certainly no actual lie,” Carroll wrote, “but certainly, as Macaulay says, it was very little different from one.”

June 15, 2015June 15, 2015 | Literature

Cube Route

You’re planning to make the wire skeleton of a cube by arranging 12 equal lengths of wire as shown and soldering them at the corners.

It occurs to you that you might be able to simplify the job by using one or more longer lengths of wire and bending them into right angles at the cube’s corners.

If you adopt that plan, what’s the smallest number of corners where soldering will still be necessary?

	Select Click for Answer
Eight. An odd number of wires meet at each corner, so every corner will still need soldering.

June 15, 2015July 19, 2015 | Puzzles

Podcast Episode 61: The Strange Custom of Garden Hermits

In 18th-century England, wealthy landowners would sometimes hire people to live as hermits in secluded corners of their estates. In today’s show we’ll explore this odd custom and review the job requirements for life as a poetic recluse.

We’ll also meet a German novelist who popularized an American West he had never seen and puzzle over some very generous bank robbers.

See full show notes …

June 14, 2015October 25, 2017 | Oddities · Podcast

Weighing in Verse

How can you find one bad coin among 12 using only three weighings in a pan balance? We published the classic solution in November 2013, but a clever alternative appeared in Eureka in October 1950. Here the aspiring counterfeiter is named Felix Fiddlesticks, and he’s trying to find the coin for this mother:

F set the coins out in a row
And chalked on each a letter, so,
To form the words: “F AM NOT LICKED”
(An idea in his brain had clicked).

And now his mother he’ll enjoin:

weighing in verse table

This plan will reveal the bad coin no matter which it is. For instance, if the coin marked O is heavy, then in the first two weighings the left pan will drop, and in the third weighing it will rise; no other bad coin will produce this result. The plan will also reveal reliably whether the bad coin is heavy or light.

Such cases number twenty-five,
And by F’s scheme we so contrive
No two agree in their effect,
As is with pen and patience checked:
And so the dud is found. Be as it may
It only goes to show CRIME DOES NOT PAY.

(Cedric Smith, “The Twelve Coin Problem,” The Mathematical Gazette, Vol. 89, No. 515 [July 2005], pp. 280-281. A generalized algorithm for solving such a problem for any number of coins is given by Michael Weatherfield in the same issue, pp. 275-279.)

June 14, 2015June 13, 2015 | Puzzles

Riddles in the Dark

In 1904, a 12-year-old J.R.R. Tolkien sent this rebus to a family friend, Father Francis Morgan. What does it say?

	Select Click for Answer
This is from Puzzling Stack Exchange, which gives the following solution (unfortunately the second page of Tolkien’s letter is missing): Tolkien’s address, in the upper right, is Woodside House, Rednal (wood, S, eye, 500=D, E, house, red [N, A, 50=L]) The rest of the page reads: My dear wise owl Fr. Francis, (1000=M, eye, deer, Y’s, owl, “Fr.”, France, hiss) You are too bad (U, R, 2, bee, A, 500=D) not to come in (knot, 2, sea, O, 1000=M, E, inn) spite of Fr. Dennis. (spit, E, “OF:, “Fr.”, 500=D, hen, eye, S) I am so sorry you (Hyam, sew, saw, rye, yew) did not like the (500=D, eye, D, knot, 50=L, “bike” – B, tea, HE) word “piano” in my l… (words, pea, “note” – T, inn, M, eye, 50=L) …ast letter. So I… (“mast” – M, letter, sow, eye) As some of the commenters mention, the “word piano” interpretation seems uncertain, but it’s hard to know what was intended given so little context. Any ideas? UPDATE: Many readers point out that the “note” is a rest, which suggests that the word may be something like letterpress (letter, pea, rest – t) or padres (pod, rest – t), the latter of which might indeed have drawn an objection from Father Morgan. This may be the rest of the letter. (Thanks, Bruce.)

Click for Answer

June 13, 2015June 28, 2015 | Puzzles

The Road Not Taken

“You know, many a man realizes late in life that if when he was a boy he had known what he knows now, instead of being what he is he might be what he won’t; but how few boys stop to think that if they knew what they don’t know instead of being what they will be, they wouldn’t be?” — Stephen Leacock, How to Make a Million Dollars, 1910

There was a young man of Cadiz,
Who inferred that life is what it is,
For he early had learnt,
If it were what it weren’t,
It could not be that which it is.

— J. St. Loe Strachey (editor of The Spectator)

June 12, 2015June 11, 2015 | Quotations

Practical Politics

On May 22, 1856, South Carolina representative Preston Brooks approached Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner as he sat writing at his desk in the U.S. Senate chamber. “Mr. Sumner,” he said, “I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine.” Then he began to beat Sumner savagely with his gold-headed walking cane. Blinded with blood, Sumner at first was trapped under the desk, which was bolted to the floor, but he wrenched it free and staggered up the aisle, Brooks raining blows on his head until the cane snapped and Sumner collapsed unconscious. Even then Brooks held him by the lapel and continued to beat him with half the cane until the two were separated.

Sumner had denounced South Carolina senator Andrew Butler in a speech two days earlier in a dispute over slavery in the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska. Brooks was convicted of assault and fined $300, but he received no prison sentence, and his constituents returned him to office. Pro-slavery Southerners sent him hundreds of new canes, one inscribed “Hit him again.”

On Nov. 9, 1889, Col. A.M. Swope encountered Col. William Cassius Goodloe in the corridor of the Lexington, Ky., post office. The two had been battling for control of the state Republican party, and tragically they had adjoining mailboxes.

“You obstruct the way,” said Goodloe.

“You spoke to me,” said Swope. “You insulted me.”

Goodloe drew a knife. Swope drew a Smith & Wesson .38. Goodloe stabbed Swope 13 times, piercing his heart and nearly cutting off his hand. Swope shot Goodloe twice, tearing up his belly and setting his clothes afire. Swope died on the post office floor, and Goodloe staggered to a doctor’s office. He died two days later.

One witness said he never thought he would witness “such a magnificent display of manly courage and bravery.” Goodloe’s uncle, Cassius M. Clay, said of his nephew’s conduct, “I couldn’t have done better myself.”

June 12, 2015June 12, 2015 | History · Society

Overtime

At Labuan, a British possession in North Borneo, there are only two English officials, Governor Leys and Lieut. Hamilton. The latter gentleman combines in himself the offices of colonial secretary, postmaster, treasurer, magistrate, inspector of police, inspector of the prison, chief commissioner of woods, colonial engineer, and master attendant. In these various capacities he corresponds from himself to himself in the most stately official style, and carefully copies and registers his numerous despatches.

— Poverty Bay Herald, Feb. 24, 1888

June 11, 2015June 9, 2015 | Oddities

Surprise Appearance

Suppose we put eight white and two black balls into a bag and then draw forth the balls one at a time. If we repeat this experiment many times, which draw is most likely to produce the first black ball?

Most people answer 4, but in fact the first black ball is most likely to appear on the very first draw:

surprise appearance table

By symmetry, the second black ball is most likely to appear on the final draw.

(A.E. Lawrence, “Playing With Probability,” Mathematical Gazette, vol. 53 [December 1969], 347-354.)

June 11, 2015June 9, 2015 | Science & Math

Early Adopter

Mark Twain boasted both that “I was the first person in the world that ever had a telephone in his house” and that “I was the first person in the world to apply the type-machine to literature.” The latter may be true — Twain began experimenting with a Remington No. 2 typewriter in 1874. He reckoned that the book must have been Tom Sawyer; in fact it was probably Life on the Mississippi.

Other writers have been slower to adopt new technology. “This is a nervous letter,” wrote Flannery O’Connor to Cecil Dawkins in 1959. “I am congratulating you on the electric typewriter. It is very nice but I am not used to it yet. I keep thinking about all the electricity that is being wasted while I think what I am going to say next.”

June 10, 2015June 9, 2015 | Literature · Technology