Intellect Sharpeners

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21906, 15 September 1934, Page 5 (Supplement)

Intellect Sharpeners

BY C. J. WHEREFORE

TRAVELLER'S STORY

An explorer, relating his adventures, said: " Our boat, with all our supplies and equipment, was stranded on a mudbank, and 1 had to enlist every inhabitant of the neighbouring village to pull it off. Their chief saw my money all in shillings, sixpences and threepenny pieces, and he said that every person who had done his bit on the ropes, would covet one of each of these three coins. There were 84 of theui standing expectantly 011 the bank of the river, and I was quite unable to hand each man his three coius as specified, but the chief undertook to pay them, if I would hand the total sum required to him. As a matter of fact I did give him three coins for every labourer, but the number of threepenny pieces was a hundred more than that of the sixpences. The old swindler undertook to settle all disputes, so that I had nothing to worry about." At this point one of the explorer's hearers asked how the money was paid, but the only answer given was: " Well, you can easily find that for yourselves, can't you''" » HOUSES AND NUMBERS Four persons, who are brothers and sisters, live in a street in which the houses are numbered consecutively, but with the odd numbers 011 one side and even numbers on the other. Two of these persons live next door to one another, thus occupying houses of which the numbers differ by 2. The other two live opposite to one another, so that the numbers of their houses differ by 1. Ihe highest number exceeds the lowest by 34, and the four numbers added together make 177. There is also a cousin living in this street, in a house of which the number is the me»in of two of the other numbers and is also a multiple of eleven. The men are living in houses which have odd numbers, and the women in houses which have even numbers. How many brothers and sisters are there, and is the cousin a man or a woman? TRAM TICKETS An inspector examined the tickets on a suburban tramcar, which had nearly reached its destination., and held only 21 passengers. He found that these persons had fourpenny, threepenny and ' twopenny tickets, and the total amount paid for them was 6s. At the last stopping place before the terminus three persons left the tram, and they all held tickets of different values. * The remainder travelled to the terminus, and here it was noticed that the numbers of passengers holding fourpenny and threepenny tickets were the same, tickets ? were holding twopenny PROBLEMS IN WORDS The following problem has been received from a correspondent whose years are evidently not very numerous or burdensome. No solution was enclosed, so that it is possible to say as the result of experience that the problem, although not difficult, is far from being childishly easy. Take the names ot eight animals which are not unusual on any farm, and each of which is spelled with four letters. Shuffle the fetters, and use them again to form fetters 600 gl ' sh words > each four A problem <vhich demands a good deal more effort is to use the 32 letters to form longer words. It is probably impossible to make four words of eight letters, but a solution can be found which gives two words of eight letters, one of seven letters, one of five and one of four. MOVING A LIBRARY A library was moved into new premises a few yards down the street. "i 16 ? be ? of committee rhus described the proceedings: " Seventeen volunteers came to carry the books. When we counted our stock in hand, ue thought there were exactly so many ' nundreds of books, but this was a mistake, and the number was one less than we expected. So we-were able to giro to each of our carriers the same number of books to take charge of. Just as thev were starting this work we received a handful of other books handed in by subscribers. I had to carry these acro.4 mj self, because if we had added them to the others, we could not 'have divided our total equally among any number of carriers. The number of these late arrivals was less than a quarter of what our friends were carrying, bo 1 finished my labours before any of them." How many books were there altogether, and how many came in at the last moment? STATIONMASTER'S PROBLEM A railway station is situated on a main line, and is also the junction from which a short branch line takes its departure. It is a small town at which only four trains on the main line stop evory day. Four residents have contrived a little weekly pastime. These are the stationmaster, his assistant, the guard of the branch train, and tho girl who runs a refreshment counter. Each player backs one of these four trains, and scores five points if it arrives punctually. If it arrives one minute late, only four points are scored, if two minutes late, only three points, and if three minutes late, only two points. On Saturday the player who has the largest score, collects six- , ponce from each of the others for every point by which his total exceeds the other. During the week to which this problem refers, no player scored fewer than two on any day. only six fives were scored, one on each of these days. The stationmaster scored three of those of Monday, Tuesday and 'Wednesday, and each of tho other players scored one of the others. On Wednesday, the stationmaster hoped to win, as the result of his good start, but on the next three days his score was always two less than that of Miss T, and he finished the week with the lowest total of them all. The guard, on the contrary, lost all hope, because on Tuesday and Wednesday he had the lowest scores. The daily totals for the six days were: 17, 16, 16, 16, 15, 14. The winner on Saturday collected sixpence, one shilling, and eighteen pence from the other players. Which was the winner, and how many points were scored? LAS " WEEK'S SOLUTIONS Digging a Ditch. —All three men work equally quickly. Armchair Problems. —(1) 1, 3, 4, and . 8 shillings. (2) Father 9, mother 5, son 3, daughter 1. (3) One snitiifig ana nine pence. Problem in Ages.—The two ages are 11 and 12, but the evidence of the extra penuy is required to show that Dorothy is the elder. , iSavings Bank Deposits. —She makes her calculations at the rate of Cs, 5s and 4s for each year, and when another year has elapsed, her total will be 15s 1110 r e. An Eastern Story.—This is much easier than it looks. The number of pence could not be more than 11 or fewer than three, and the number or shillings could not be more than 1" or fewer than 11. Therefore there were nine men who were sent to buy the medicine, and the price paid by each was one-eighth of the range between the two extromes, which is elevenpence. After this it i« easy to see that there , were 22 packages in the shop, - ■ ' ' ''