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Dog Tired 27 Aug 2013 | 11:03 am
Another puzzle by Boris Kordemsky: Jack London tells of racing from Skagway, Alaska, to a camp where a friend lay dying. London drove a sled pulled by five huskies, which pulled the sled at full speed...
Single Cases 27 Aug 2013 | 03:31 am
If we roll a fair die an infinite number of times, the outcome 4 occurs in 1/6 of the cases. In this light we can say that the probability of rolling a 4 with this die is 1/6. But suppose that, instea...
A Living Casualty 26 Aug 2013 | 07:26 pm
On Feb. 1, 1918, a French soldier appeared in the railway station in Lyon. He had lost his memory: He muttered that his name was Anthelme Mangin, but he didn’t know who he was or where he belonged. Hi...
Unquote 26 Aug 2013 | 11:25 am
“I maintain that there is no common language or medium of understanding between people of education and without it — between those who judge of things from books or from their senses. Ignorance has so...
Pursuit of Truth 25 Aug 2013 | 11:12 pm
Can animals reason without using language? Sextus Empiricus writes: [Chrysippus] declares that the dog makes use of the fifth complex indemonstrable syllogism when, on arriving at a spot where three ...
Riddle 25 Aug 2013 | 11:11 am
In the February 1926 issue of the National Puzzlers’ League publication Enigma, “Remardo” offered this mock-Latin verse: Justa sibi dama ne Luci dat eas qua re Ibi dama id per se Veret odo thesa m...
Turn, Turn, Turn 24 Aug 2013 | 11:20 pm
A Russian problem from the 1999 Mathematical Olympiad: Each cell in an 8×8 grid contains an arrow that points up, down, left, or right. There’s an exit at the top edge of the top right square. You be...
The Ghost House 24 Aug 2013 | 11:19 am
Architect Robert Venturi got a tricky assignment in 1976: The National Park Service wanted to commemorate Ben Franklin’s residence in Philadelphia, but Franklin’s house had been demolished in 1812 and...
Object Lessons 24 Aug 2013 | 03:00 am
In 1965, sculptor Claes Oldenburg proposed building a colossal Good Humor bar on Park Avenue in Manhattan. All the traffic would have to be routed through a bite in the bar’s corner. He also proposed...
The Bargain Bin 23 Aug 2013 | 07:59 pm
Unusual book titles collected by Russell Ash and Brian Lake for Bizarre Books (1998): Jokes Cracked by Lord Aberdeen by Lord Aberdeen, 1929 The Romance of Proctology by Charles Elton Blanchard, 1938 ...
