Intellect Sharpeners

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21462, 8 April 1933, Page 5 (Supplement)

Intellect Sharpeners

CONSTRUCTING A WORD BT T. L. BRITON There is ail English word of eigbl letters, tho meaning of which will nol be divulged. There are other means by which the reader can find what wont it is, these clues being the essence 08 this interesting puzzle. All the letters in the word are different, allowing tha use of tho first eight digits as their respective equivalents, and the numeric cal spelling of it for the purposes o{. this problem is .as'follows: 1, 2, 3, 4,5, 6, 7, 8. Digits 4, 6, 8, in that order spell, with their alphabetical equivalents, a word meaning " essay," with the accent ori the last syllable. Dibits 3, 5, 2, 1, 8, with substituted letters in tho order written, form a word usually employed to denote the worst side of a matter or thing, speaking figuratively, and when the correct equivalents are substituted for the digits 7, 2, 4, 5, 6, they would reveal a word of every-day use meaning " after something else " or " subsequently." It; may not be giving tho secret away i£ it is stated that tho whole word would bo likely to be frequently used in a biography or commentary of some distinguished person when referring to his achievements. Of course the " cWwords must bo found, even if by some, lucky chanco the whole word is discovered from the scant information, given in the previous sentence, but the reader should derive excellent mental exercise from tho puzzle if tackled in. the order of the clues mentioned. ELEMENTARY ARITHMETIC Hero are two useful questions involving the most elementary arithmetic, which may give the reader a few moments' hard thinking. The two grades of cricket teams belonging to one of the city colleges used, during the season just closed, thirteen " match " balls, and eleven of a cheaper kind for practice. The total cost of both sets was £l2 ss, and the question is bow much each were these balls, if the invoice for seven " match" and thirty-three "practice" balls of precisely similar kinds purchased by the " Old Bovs " team during the season was £l6 15s? Perhaps the reader may elect to deal with this puzzla from the armchair, although it is not a condition. But the following problem should certaiuly not require the aid of either pen or pencil. Assuming that the capacity of every man employed is the same in bo far as ability to work is concerned, can the reader say how; many hours a day a gang of 24 men. must work in order to accomplish as much in five days as 25 men working six hours a day could do in four days?

AN ALPHABETICAL SUM Here, is a puzzle that should keep the reader pleasurably employed for five minutes or perhaps longer. Provided that he refrains from adopting " trial " methods it should afford a non-strenuous sharpening of the intellect. The puzzle is in tho form of an alphabetical sum involving only subtraction and multiplication, to find the numerical substitute for each of the nine letters employed, all of tliem being different, so that when found the sum will be arithmetically correct. As every digit is used (cipher omitted),; each must represent a different letter. RS .multiplied by T give as a result UVW, and X minus Y equals Z. Now when wo add to this, that if Z is subtracted from U, the numerical equivalent of the remainder would be exactly the same as the result of taking the digit-equivalent of Y from that of X, the puzzle will be simplified sufficiently to s place it well within tho category of' those prescribed for ' tho armchair. In questions like these the process of elimination is useful, finding by deductive reasoning what digit cannot be the equivalent of a given letter.; AUNT TABITHA'S AGE Aunt Tabitha, as is usually the case in relationships of the- kind, is older than her nephew Jack, and the following information should be ample for the reader to discover by how many vears she is his senior. The details, however, are so stated that it may prove a puzzle to find aunt's age, notwithstanding that the arithmetic necessary for tho purpose is absurdly simple. The number representing Tabitha's age at the present time is exactly tho same as in the case of her relative, with, however, the figures reversed, and moreover exactly seven years previously the aunt was four times as old as the nephew. Another point concerning their relative ages is that when both of them are five,.-years older than their present ages, the lady's years will be exactly twice those denoting Jack's age. Now if Aunt Tabitha will be one year less than half a hundred years old in the year

that tho nephew becomes the age that his aunt is now, can the reader find exactly how old the lady is at present?, As in most puzzles of this kind, careful observance of the tenses of th® verbs employed is useful.

A USEFUL CODE Hero is a sentence of 28 words of good English written in a useful example of code-text. If the reader who' enjoys the effort of unravelling tho mysteries of this variety of puzzle can succeed within half an hour in converting the passage into its original text ho will no doubt-find that his mental faculties have been considerably, refreshed thereby, and that the timeoccupied has been enjoyably spent;; Part of the plan of disguise is novel,; and the whole method is based upon a uniform scheme, so that tho would-be solver will not be confused by morei than one equivalent for any code-letter.'. Qaw rxmExsqau rxlk mkssjuks qay rqEAkc qew qsv qmmjekcqjO lAkeAko yik kmEOxo sEkrqjO rAjcjrekcs wex Ikaxek bjcqxzs Okeekcs xcy lAkeAko wile zsk yeAk Okeekcs qaw axa-ajezcjO. skask. The second-last word is liypbenised as written. • LAST WEEK'S SOLUTIONS Three Armchair Problems.—(l) Lnsfc ono per cent; (2) from 4s 2d to 4s; (3) must be increased one-third. Two Rates of Travelling.—Three, fifths of a mile. The liability ot trijv pixig is due to the fact that the averago is seven and a-fifth miles an hour, not seven and a-half. A " Restoration " Sum.—Divisor 2435, dividend 1943130 and the quotient 798. As stated in tho problem, there are three lilies of multiplication each, of which contains five figures. . Escaping from Custody—The actual distanco in a straight line was four miles and 1275 yards, as it was made clear that the tidal influence added to

mi Ice an hour Bpeed and lessened the 2} miles an hour to tho same extent, 200 yards per hour. New Magic Square.—With the con* dition that an " eight " must not appear in the bottom row, there is only, one example, namely:— 8 14. 35 7 . 6 9 2 . ,< * „ the common difference, being five..