Valise Police

Briefcase security, then and now:

In 1925, August Eimer invented the case above, which emits smoke when torn from its owner’s hand “in the form of a continually issuing cloud that will envelop the container and serve to unmistakably identify its purloiner, necessitating discard of the container by the thief if he would make his escape.”

In 1989, Isaac Soleimani offered the model below: As the thief is running off, you activate a radio signal that releases a latch, “with the result that the briefcase falls on the ground, leaving the thief only with the handle.”

It seems there’s always an element of slapstick. “The handle could also be spring-loaded so that upon remote triggering it could clamp down hard onto the thief’s hand, clamping the fingers between the handle and the top of the briefcase, thereby inflicting pain to the thief, causing him to drop the briefcase.”

October 3, 2012October 2, 2012 | Crime · Technology

The End of Me

How very intimate the bodily sense is can be seen by performing a little experiment in your imagination. Think first of swallowing the saliva in your mouth, or do so. Then imagine expectorating it into a tumbler and drinking it! What seemed natural and ‘mine’ suddenly becomes disgusting and alien. Or picture yourself sucking blood from a prick in your finger; then imagine sucking blood from a bandage around your finger! What I perceive as belonging intimately to my body is warm and welcome; what I perceive as separate from my body becomes, in the twinkling of an eye, cold and foreign.

— Gordon W. Allport, Becoming: Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality, 1960

October 3, 2012October 2, 2012 | Oddities

Sans Merci

New Zealander Nancy Wake fought fearlessly for the Allies in World War II, first for the French resistance and later as a spy for Britain’s Special Operations Executive.

Parachuted into the Auvergne in April 1944, she was hanging from a tree when a resistance fighter told her, “I hope that all the trees in France bear such beautiful fruit this year.”

She said, “Don’t give me that French shit.”

(Thanks, Vinny.)

October 2, 2012October 10, 2012 | History

Injured List

Another puzzle from Henry Dudeney:

“It is a glorious game!” an enthusiast was heard to exclaim. “At the close of last season, of the footballers of my acquaintance, four had broken their left arm, five had broken their right arm, two had the right arm sound, and three had sound left arms.” Can you discover from that statement what is the smallest number of players that the speaker could be acquainted with?

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The smallest possible number of men is seven. They could be accounted for in three different ways. (1) Two with both arms sound, one with broken right arm, and four with both arms broken. (2) One with both arms sound, one with broken left arm, two with broken right arm, and three with both arms broken. (3) Two with left arm broken, three with right arm broken, and two with both arms broken. But if every man was injured, the last case is the only one that would apply.

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October 2, 2012February 7, 2013 | Puzzles

The Star Gauge

Chinese poet and palindromist Su Hui lost her husband to a concubine in the fourth century. To console her grief and to lure him back, she composed an ingenious array of 841 characters that can be read forward, backward, horizontally, vertically, and diagonally:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Xuanjitu.GIF — Image: Wikimedia Commons

Each seven-character segment corresponds to a poetic line, and can be read in either direction. At the end of each segment, “you encounter a junction of meridians and can choose which direction to go,” explains anthologist David Hinton. “You can begin anywhere, and the poem ends after four lines have been chosen. This structure generates 2,848 possible poems.”

It’s said that Su Hui’s husband was so moved that he sent away the concubine and rejoined her.

October 2, 2012January 31, 2013 | Language · Poems

Soul Support

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inside_my_head.jpg — Image: Wikimedia Commons

“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.” — J.B.S. Haldane, Possible Worlds, 1927

October 1, 2012May 6, 2013 | Science & Math

The Dwarfs Problem

From the 1977 all-Soviet-Union Mathematical Olympiad:

Seven dwarfs are sitting at a round table. Each has a cup, and some cups contain milk. Each dwarf in turn pours all his milk into the other six cups, dividing it equally among them. After the seventh dwarf has done this, they find that each cup again contains its initial quantity of milk. How much milk does each cup contain, if there were 42 ounces of milk altogether?

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Since the final state matches the initial state, we can imagine this process going on continuously. Consider the dwarf whose cup contains the smallest amount of milk just before he begins pouring. Call him D, and call this quantity of milk a ounces. Since D’s cup contains the least milk before pouring, then each other dwarf has an equal or greater amount in his own cup before pouring, and thus gives D at least a/6 ounces. This would leave D with at least a ounces in his own cup just before pouring; the only way he can receive precisely a ounces, as we know he does, is if each other dwarf gives him precisely a/6 ounces and no more, i.e., that each cup, just before pouring, contains the same quantity of milk. So after any given pouring the cups contain a, 5/6a, 4/6a, 3/6a, 2/6a, 1/6a, and 0 ounces; if there are 42 ounces in total then this works out to 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, and 0 ounces.

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October 1, 2012February 7, 2013 | Puzzles

Unquote

“Generations pass while some trees stand, and old families last not three oaks.” — Thomas Browne

October 1, 2012September 30, 2012 | Quotations

“Extraordinary Occurrence”

exeter mail coach lion attack

The Exeter mail coach was making its way past Salisbury on the night of Oct. 20, 1816, when it met with a rare adventure. From the Edinburgh Annual Register:

At the moment when the coachman pulled up to deliver his bags, one of the leaders was suddenly seized by a ferocious animal. This produced great confusion and alarm; two passengers who were inside the mail got out, ran into the house, and locked themselves up in a room above stairs; the horses kicked and plunged violently, and it was with difficulty the coachman could prevent the carriage from being overturned. It was soon perceived by the coachman and guard, by the light of the lamps, that the animal which had seized the horse was a huge lioness. A large mastiff dog came up, and attacked her fiercely, on which she quitted the horse, and turned upon him. The dog fled, but was pursued and killed by the lioness within about 40 yards of the place.

The creature had escaped from a caravan on its way to Salisbury fair. She was hunted into a hovel under a granary, where “her howlings were heard to the distance of half a mile,” and the caravan’s owner eventually appeared and led her back to her cage. “The horse, when first attacked, fought with great spirit, and if at liberty, would probably have beaten down his antagonist with his fore feet, but in plunging he embarrassed himself in the harness. … The ferocious animal missed the throat, and the jugular vein, but the horse is so dreadfully torn he is not expected to survive.”

September 30, 2012September 29, 2012 | Oddities

Tiling Task

tiling task 1

We’ve removed two squares from this 7×8 grid, so that it numbers 54 squares. Can it be covered orthogonally with tiles like the one at right, each of which covers exactly three squares?

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No. Number the squares as shown. Now each tile, however it’s placed, must cover a 1, a 2, and a 3. But the grid contains 19 1s, 18 2s, and 17 3s. So the task is impossible. From Pierre Berloquin, The Garden of the Sphinx, 1981.

September 30, 2012February 7, 2013 | Puzzles