" NUTS I"

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 73, 27 March 1931, Page 16

" NUTS I"

INTELLECT SHARPENERS All rights reserved.

(By T. L. Briton.)

Beaders with a little ingenuity ■will find in this column an abundant store of entertainment, and amusement, and tho solving of the problems should provide excellent mental exhilaration. While some of the "nuts" may appear harder than others, It will be found that none will require a alodge-kamme? to crack them.

A CRYPTOGRAM. Correspondents have frequently asked for an occasional code problem, and here is one that should give the reader perhaps half an hour of good mental exercise. "L.E.W." has sent the- problem, but not tho solution, which will give tho writer of these notes a little diversion, to find the correct one for publication next Saturday. The cryptogram is unlike tho ordinary code puzzle inasmuch that tho key or basis of solution is given—viz., that one letter is substituted for another uniformly throughout—BClU AWP HCIU SBU WAEU CQ YCIPNYCISB NSAWPN COS AN SBAS CQ SBU VIUASUNS CQ SBCNU VITJAS BUW SC YBCP* YU CYU SBU KGIAKOMCOT WUY FGISB CQ UWVMGNB YCUSIJ A BOWPIUP AWP BCIU JUAIN AVC BU BAP BGN YUAH RCEUWSN WO PCOFS FOS FOS GS GN SBU VIUAS KCBUWSN CQ- A YCUS SBAS KASSUI AWP YBUW YU lUBUB.FUI YCIPNYCISBN YU AVIUU YGSB BI MANKUMMUN AFUIKICKFGU SBAS GW TGISOU CQ SBUB BU NSAWPN SBGIP ABCWV UWVMGNB XCUSN. Punctuation lias been ignored, but all words arc as written. TWO FOB THE ARMCHAIR. After the .strenuous effort unravelling the previous puzzle, let us have a couple of easier ones for tho armchair. Seven boys ou holiday bent had each a certain sum of money to spend, and spent it. Six of them spent one shilling and sixpenco each, but Jim, tho seventh, was a little older than the others and spent more, his expenditure representing sixpence more than the average for tho whole party. How much did Jim spend? A chemist's assistant had two sixteeu ounce bottles, one containing a drug in liquid to tho extent of exactly one-half tho capacity of the bottle, the other holding eight ounces of distilled water. Ho poured half an ounce of the drug into tlio water, which resulted in the latter bottle then containing sixteen parts of water to one of the drug. After shaking the bottle, lie poured one half-ounce of the mixture into the bottle containing tho drug, and the question is what "was the proportion of drug to water in tho last-named bottle after completion of both operations ? WHO FIBED THE SHOT? An interesting correspondent, C.J.W., has sent a graphic account of a murder ease in which a .little mathematics enabled the detective to arrest tho guilty person. The crime was committed at half past 1 o'clock iD tho morning by one of three men, the butler, the chauffeur, or the gardener, who were all employed at the house of the man who had been shot. Those three were tho only people beside the victim in the houso the night before, tho four being seen in argument at midnight?The chauffeur left the scene in a car at the saino time that tho butler left on his motor-cycle, but tho gardener's movements were revealed by the fact that he left his "push-bike" at a regair shop 70 (seventy) miles from the house at 9 o'clock on tho morning of the day of the murder, having travelled until that time without stopping. The chauffeur was arrested at 7 a.m. (seven) one hundred and eighty miles from the scene, and the butler an hour later at the cross-roads one hundred and forty miles from the place of tho murder," both having been arrested at tho moment of arrival there. If the butler travelled twice as fast as the gardener, and the car half as fast again as the motor-cycle, these relative speeds boing maintained from the times of departnre up to the respective hours mentioned, no stops being- made en route, which of tho three fired the shot? A "BREATHER." Here is a very simple calculation which may servo as a "breather" after tho possible mental exhaustion finding tho solution of the previous problem. In a deceased estate the testator left a sum of £7500 to bo divided between his widow, two sons, and three daughters in the following manner. Each of the sons to receive twice as much as each daughter, and the widow £500 (five hundred) more than the five children together. How should tho estate bo divided? No pen or pencil will, of course, bo requisitioned in order to find a solution, of this simple everyday question, which is submitted by way of compensation for the more difficult one preceding. FROM COVER TO COVER. A set of boo'-s, twelve in number, was standing on the middle shelf in a libral--, tho shelf being exactly thirteen I a half inches in length. The boo., were numbered one to twelve, and stood side by side in numerical order, reading from the left. The edition being tin old one and not much in use, the librarian was going through them in his rounds to mark certain books for sending to the hospitals, when ho discovered that the grub had got to work in many of them. In this particular set, which consisted of books of uniform size, namely, one inch thick, exclusive of tho covers, one-eighth of an inch thick in-each'case, a boring insect had eaten its way from pago one of volume one, in a straight line through several of the books, finishing up at. the last page of volume four. Can tho render say how far the grub had bored if it started in tho exact centre of page one of tho book mentioned and finished (after travelling parallel with tho shelves) at t.ho centre of tho last page of volume four' LAST WEEK'S SOLUTIONS. In Front or Behind. —In a circular track there must always bo the same number of competitors in front of any particular one as behind him, and in this case tho number was fourteen, making fifteen competitors. Ont of the Ordinary.—The number seven is tho lowest of the series, which runs 7.. 10, 13.. IG, etc. The Evergreen "Ada."—As there is the choice of eight letters to start a word and- seven to finish it, the number of different ways is 56, as one reader, 8.J.G., has stated. The Capacity of a Tank.—Six hundred gallons. A Triangular Duel.—24s, J. 13s, K. 7s, and L. 4s. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. "Colenso."—Tho ages and the weights are so curiously involved that without careful examination tho material data are not easy to disentangle. But tho problem will be found to bo pure.mathematics and quite elementary. "Measures."—The metre is about tme-ten-millionth of tho distanco from the equator to one of tho poles, measured along a meridian. It is equal to 30.37 inches, or 3.281 feet. Correspondence sholtl be addressed to P. O. Box 102 a.