20 March 2022

Puzzle #2 (logic) from my India trip

This puzzle also comes courtesy my eldest nephew.

There are 101 boxes. A girl marked them “1”, “2”, “3”…. all the way to “101”. She had two colored pens to mark the boxes with – red and blue. And she used both of them. Only one color was used for any one box. We know that the total number of blue boxes is the same as the highest numbered blue color marked box. And to that if you add twice the lowest numbered red color marked box, you will get the total number of boxes.

The question is, how many blue and red boxes were there?

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17 March 2022

Puzzle #1 (math) from my India trip

This was given to me by my elder nephew. I was able to solve it but in the process I learnt a new concept in numbers called partition number. My nephew taught me a method of how to get to the partition number for a number. He claimed it is called the Chinese method.

Here is the puzzle:

In the following expression, once expanded, what is the coefficient of x9 ?

(1+x)(1+x2)(1+x3)(1+x4)(1+x5)….(1+x100)

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5 March 2022

You can never get over your first love!

At the young (ha!) age of 51, it struck my completely dysfunctional brain that learning how to ride a motorbike might be a good idea. The line that the frontal cortex would not let me cross was eventually breached by a lot of brown alcohol and the company of Magesh.

Phoenix was my first motorbike. I was scared as hell. But I fell in love with riding. Phoenix has been witness to too many newbie mistakes and been the not-so-silent companion in my quiet solo rides in the mountains. More importantly, Phoenix opened my eyes to the social aspects of group riding.

About 4 years and 21K miles later, I had to say goodbye to Phoenix. Very reluctantly, I might add. Pegasus is home.

I hung on to Phoenix as long as I could find space in the garage. As I transition to the empty-nesting house, it became evident to me that I could keep only one motorbike.

I realized that Phoenix needed to be set free. Instead of idling in my garage, she will bring joy to her new owner – whoever he/she is.

That picture was my last ride out of home with her.

She is mine no more!!

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28 February 2022

Good grief! My doppelganger!!

Somewhat unexpectedly, I got a Whatsapp message from my good friend Swati Jamwal asking me if I was in Pune having breakfast at a hotel. That was while I was sleeping in Atlanta. I saw the message when I woke up the next day and let her know that I was not. But that I will be in India in a couple of weeks. Curious, I enquired why she was asking.

She sent me this picture and asked me if this was my twin!

Man! I myself was fooled. My first reaction was that she was playing a prank on me with some old picture of mine!!

Later, Sharmila and Nikita pointed out some very subtle differences in the lips and nose. But boy, I was totally fooled!!!

My Pune friends, if you ever see “me” in Pune, please collect “my” contacts and send it to me. I will make it a point to take a picture of us together!!

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