Feb 14th is Valentine’s day. No doubt you know that. But if you are not from India, you may not know that Nov 14th is celebrated as Children’s Day in India. This is to celebrate India’s first prime minister Nehru’s birthday who was a great friend of children.
The discerning amongst you no doubt have realized that there is exactly 9 months between Valentine’s Day and Children’s Day in India! 🙂
Today Linda Michelson Sandler reported that her husband – who is not a FB friend of mine – but should be – has been wondering why I have not posted any more puzzles. You know you have created a problem when people are asking around why you are not posting puzzles 🙂
I had to quickly think of this one. If you know it send me PM.
You are given a bunch of ropes and a few match sticks. What you know about the ropes is that they all burn at very different rates at different segments but each one of them burns off completely in exactly 1 hour (60 minutes).
How can you measure 45 minutes? What is the minimum number of ropes and match sticks you need and how would you do it?
First 5K run after the flu. With Sunday morning Bengali group. Seemed to have survived it so far.
Today, we changed up our route a little. At one point, we were looking up a steep hill in front of us. As we all took a deep breath before charging up the hill, Samaresh captured our collective thoughts in a few words
“Se ki UP
Baapre baap” 🙂
Puzzle time: The last puzzle given by my brother in law – I am still trying to decipher the answer from three of my friends – one of whom is the brainy-types and has changed his mind thrice….
But today is Thursday and I should be flying home…. so here is one that is easier …
How do you get 100 using one “1” and four “7”s. You can use plus, minus, multiple, divide symbols and parentheses.
e.g. 177-77
Now give me another answer…
If you have cracked it, send me PM. I will recognize you publicly…
Unintentional 7.5K run in Chateau Élan. The story is to “die for” 🙂 Originally, the idea was to run through the neighborhood behind the winery for 5K. Somewhere in the hills in the dark, I took a wrong turn and found myself on a State Highway and by now 5K away from where I needed to be. It was a single lane highway with no median and barely any shoulder to run on.
Throwing caution to the wind, I just ran on the highway (on the left side so I could see oncoming traffic). A ferocious looking dog that had greeted me about a mile back might have something to do with the decision 🙂 Judging by the reaction of the drivers, they are not used to seeing runners on that highway 🙂
At one point, after running downhill, I faced a long bridge with absolutely no side space to run on. So, I had to clear the bridge before any oncoming car could enter the bridge.
I summoned all my engineering skills – estimated the length of the bridge, knew my speed, estimated the vehicle’s speed, adjusted for the fact they will accelerate as they hurtled downhill on the other side of the bridge and estimated the point on the road other side of the bridge which was the cut off point (I had to make sure no car had crossed that point). Finally found an opportunity where the next car was beyond that point and I ran like the wind…
And met the car about half way into the bridge 🙂
She was kind enough to move over to the wrong side lane. And I ran the rest of the distance mumbling to myself “One minute is 60 seconds; not 100. One minute is 60 seconds…” 🙂
New puzzle!! Like every other responsible brother-in-law, I called up my BIL this morning to check on him and his family. As is his wont, he immediately rewarded me with a puzzle which has stumped me ever since. (I think he is trying to give me a hint 🙂 ). Anyways, I got to the answer intuitively (and I am assuming it is the correct answer since he confirmed it) but for the life of me, I cannot come up with a proof for the answer.
So, here it is: Think of a circle. Now think of all the n-sided regular polygons that can fit in it (all the vertices of the regular polygon will touch the circumference of the circle). Which figure (i.e. for what value of “n” – triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon etc etc ) will have the maximum value for the sum of squares of the sides.
As always, if you know or crack it, send a PM. I will acknowledge in the common forum.
