A Time Puzzle.
How many minutes is it until six o'clock if fifty minutes ago it was
four times as many minutes past three o'clock?
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Changing Places.
The above clock face indicates a little before 42 minutes past 4. The
hands will again point at exactly the same spots a little after 23
minutes past 8. In fact, the hands will have changed places. How many
tim...
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The Knight-guards.
The knight is the irresponsible low comedian of the chessboard. "He is a
very uncertain, sneaking, and demoralizing rascal," says an American
writer. "He can only move two squares, but makes up in the quality o...
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The Sixteen Sheep.
[Illustration:
+========================+
|| | | | ||
|| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 ||
+-----+-----+-----+------+
|| | | | ||
|| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 ||
+====...
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The Honeycomb Puzzle.
Here is a little puzzle with the simplest possible conditions. Place the
point of your pencil on a letter in one of the cells of the honeycomb,
and trace out a very familiar proverb by passing always from a cel...
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The Barrel Puzzle.
The men in the illustration are disputing over the liquid contents of a
barrel. What the particular liquid is it is impossible to say, for we
are unable to look into the barrel; so we will call it water. One ma...
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Find The Man's Wife.
One summer day in 1903 I was loitering on the Brighton front, watching
the people strolling about on the beach, when the friend who was with me
suddenly drew my attention to an individual who was standing alone...
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The Pentagon And Square.
I wonder how many of my readers, amongst those who have not given any
close attention to the elements of geometry, could draw a regular
pentagon, or five-sided figure, if they suddenly required to do so. A
regu...
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The Chifu-chemulpo Puzzle
Here is a puzzle that was once on sale in the London shops. It represents a military train—an engine and eight cars. The puzzle is to reverse the cars, so that they shall be in the order 8, 7, 6, 5,...
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Painting A Pyramid.
This puzzle concerns the painting of the four sides of a tetrahedron, or
triangular pyramid. If you cut out a piece of cardboard of the
triangular shape shown in Fig. 1, and then cut half through along the
dott...
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The Sailor's Puzzle.
The sailor depicted in the illustration stated that he had since his
boyhood been engaged in trading with a small vessel among some twenty
little islands in the Pacific. He supplied the rough chart of which I
h...
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The Greyhound Puzzle.
In this puzzle the twenty kennels do not communicate with one another by
doors, but are divided off by a low wall. The solitary occupant is the
greyhound which lives in the kennel in the top left-hand corner. W...
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An Episcopal Visitation.
The white squares on the chessboard represent the parishes of a diocese.
Place the bishop on any square you like, and so contrive that (using the
ordinary bishop's move of chess) he shall visit every one of his...
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Digital Square Numbers.
Here are the nine digits so arranged that they form four square numbers:
9, 81, 324, 576. Now, can you put them all together so as to form a
single square number--(I) the smallest possible, and (II) the largest...
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A Reversible Magic Square
Can you construct a square of sixteen different numbers so that it shall be magic (that is, adding up alike in the four rows, four columns, and two diagonals), whether you turn the diagram upside down or ...
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The Grocer And Draper.
A country "grocer and draper" had two rival assistants, who prided
themselves on their rapidity in serving customers. The young man on the
grocery side could weigh up two one-pound parcels of sugar per minute,
...
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The Two Horseshoes.
Why horseshoes should be considered "lucky" is one of those things
which no man can understand. It is a very old superstition, and John
Aubrey (1626-1700) says, "Most houses at the West End of London have a
hor...
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The Village Cricket Match.
In a cricket match, Dingley Dell v. All Muggleton, the latter had the
first innings. Mr. Dumkins and Mr. Podder were at the wickets, when the
wary Dumkins made a splendid late cut, and Mr. Podder called on him ...
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The Four Kangaroos.
In introducing a little Commonwealth problem, I must first explain that
the diagram represents the sixty-four fields, all properly fenced off
from one another, of an Australian settlement, though I need hardly ...
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A Tennis Tournament.
Four married couples played a "mixed double" tennis tournament, a man
and a lady always playing against a man and a lady. But no person ever
played with or against any other person more than once. Can you show ...
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