This time you’re stuck somewhere in the middle of the 19th century and, as usual, the cops are after you for the crime of treason for which the penalty is death. But you’re in a bit of luck because (a) the typewriter just got invented and (b) the King who’s the only one who can pardon you is a mechanical nerd fond of mathematical mindgames. So he has you chained to one such machine and says you have to type the numbers ONE, TWO, THREE, and so on and on till you hit the letter C when you’ll be pardoned.Let’s say it takes 10 seconds on average to type each number (spelt correctly in English). How long before you walk free?
THROUGHPUT
(The Auld Lang Syne problem was: “A slanted roof receives less rain per unit area than level ground. Does this mean rain falling at a slant will be less wetting than straight rain?”)
Rain falling from a 100 metres stretch of clouds falling at a slant, wets the same extent of ground that it would if it fell vertically, but moved to the left or right depending on wind direction and to the same extent. The point is that the ground area is being compared with the cloud area to which it is parallel but in the case of slanted roof, it is not. -- Narayana Murty Karri, k_n_murty@yahoo.com
When the rain falls vertically on a slanted roof, the amount of water falling is distributed over a larger area than when it falls on a horizontal surface. Therefore, the roof receives less rain per unit area than level ground does. However, this principle is not applicable when rain falls at a slant on level ground. This is because, for the major part, rain falls vertically and slants only near the earth due to surface winds. Therefore, the rain per unit area in the vertical part and that in the slanted part will be the same and consequently the wetting will be the same as when rain falls vertically. -- Balagopalan Nair K, balagopalannair@gmail.com
(The second one was an old one about finding words given their definitions. A few decades back NOBODY came even CLOSE to solving it. This time THREE people got it spot on! You think they’re hoarders of right solutions?)
1. Verecund; 2. Katabasis; 3. Quadramanous; 4. Nidify; 5. Xerophagy; 6. Seraphic; 7. Galumph; 8. Hebetude; 9. Lentiginous; 10. Thersitical; 11. Funambulist; 12. Ananias; 13. Discalced; 14. Oneiric; 15. Bibelot; 16. Wraith; 17. Cornigerous; 18. Incrassate; 19. Ulotrichous; 20. Estivate; 21. Jugulate; 22. Remontant; 23. Macrotous; 24 Pleonastic. --
Saifuddin S F Khomosi, Dubai (Yes, Meera Nair, Rameeraraja@gmail.com and Dhruv Narayan, dhruv510@gmail.com, you also may be hoarders.)
(The third problem was: “How can a 3 × 3 × 3 cube be divided into 20 cubes -- not necessarily the same size?”)
First cut a cube of the size 2 x 2 x 2 from one corner; then the remaining part can be cut into 19 cubes of 1 x 1 x 1 size, thus making a total of 20 cubes. -- Dr P Gnanaseharan, nanam.chithrabanu@gmail.com
One simply has to find the sum of 20 numbers of cubes equal to 27 (initial volume of cube of 3 units side). A simple way in which this can be done is 19 cubes of one unit side and another cube with 2 units side. So we have 19*(1^3) + 1*(2^3) = 27. -- A V Ramana Rao, raoavr@gmail.com
(Among the first 10 who also got it right are: K Sathyadev, sathya2008k@gmail.com; Raghavendra Rao Hebbani, rao.raghavendrah@gmail.com; Nrusingha Behera, ncb123.age@gmail.com; Gopu Natarajan, gopucgtcirs@gmail.com; Narayanan P S, narayananpsn@gmail.com; S V S Sivam, svssivam@yahoo.com; Venkateswaran R, venkateswaranjanaki@gmail.com; J Vaseekhar Manuel, orcontactme@gmail.com; Babu R, baabu.r@gmail.com; Abhay Prakash, abhayprakash@hotmail.com)
BUT GOOGLE THIS NOW
1. HERO and HOST are masculine nouns which turn feminine by adding suffixes like -INE and –ESS. Can any familiar feminine noun be turned masculine by adding a suffix?
2. In the US I went to a store called 7/11 where everything was priced less than $5. I bought four items and asked the salesman for the amount I had to pay. He said 7/11. I asked him how he had calculated that. He said he had simply multiplied the price of each item. I told him he should have added the prices instead. He told me to add the prices myself. To my surprise I found the price of all four items came to $7.11. See if you can get the prices.