INTELLECT SHARPENERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22367, 14 September 1934, Page 4

INTELLECT SHARPENERS

Written for the. Otago Daily Times. By C. J. Wherefobe. [Correspondence should be addressed to Box 1177, Wellington.] A TRAVELLER’S STORY. An explorer was relating his adventures: “Our boat with all our supplies and equipment stranded on a mudbank, and 1 had to enlist every inhabitant of the neighbouring villhge 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 them standing expectantly on the bank of the river, and 1 was quite unable to hand each man his three coins as specified, but the chief undertook to pay them, if I would hand the total sum required over 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 1 had nothing to worry about.” At this point one of his hearers ventured to ask how the money was paid, but the only answer given was, Well,, you can easily find that for yourselves, can’t you ? IN A SUBURBAN STREET. Four persons, who are brothers and sisters, live in a street in which the houses are numbered consecutively, with the odd numbers on one side and the 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 I.' The 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 mean' 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 iu houses which have even numbers. How many brothers and sisters are there, and is the cousin a man or a woman? ’ ■ TRAM TICKETS. AnQnspector examined the tickets on a suburban tram, 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 six shillings. 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. But how many were holding twopenny tickets? A PROBLEM IN WORDS. The following problem has been received from a correspondent, whosfc 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 of eight animals which are not unusual on any, farm, and each of which is spelled with four letters. Shuffle the letters, and use them again to form eight good English words, each of four letters. .A problem, which 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 INTO NEW PREMISES. It was found necessary to move the library in a certain township into new premises a few yards down the street; and a member of the committee described the proceedings to a friend. Seventeen volunteers came to carry the books. When we counted our stock in hand we thought there were exactly so many hundreds of books, but this was a mistake, and the number was 6ne less than we expected. So we were able to give to each of our carriers the same number of books to take charge of. Just- as they were starting this work we received a handful of other books handed in by subscribers. 1 had to carry these across myself, because if we had added them to the others we -could not have divided our total equally among anv number of carriers. The number of these late arrivals was less than a quarter ,of what our friends were carrying, so I finished my labours before any of them. How many, books were there altogether and how many came in at the last moment?

THE STATIONMASTER’S PROBLEM.

A certain 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 every day, and in other -ways it is a dull, uneventful place. Four persons, who reside here, have contrived a little weekly pastime. These are the stationmaster, his assistant, the guard of the leisurely branch train, and the girl who runs a refreshment counter to supply tea and sandwiches to passengers. Each player backs one of these four trains, and scores five points if it arrives punctually. If it arrives one minute late, only 4 points are scored, if two minutes late only 3 points; and if three minutes late only 2 points. On Saturday the player who has the largest score collects Cd 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 less than two on any day; only six fives were scored, one on each of these days, The stationmaster scored three of these on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and each of the 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 totals per day for the six days -were 17, 16, 16, 16, 15, 14. The winner on Saturday collected 6d, Is, and Is 6d, from the other players. Can readers decide which was the winner, and how many points.were scored?

SOLUTIONS OP LAST WEEK’S PROBLEMS.

Digging a Ditch,—All three men work equally quickly. Armchair Problems.—(l) 1,3, 4, and 8 ehillings. (2) Father 9, mother *5, son 3, daughter 1. (3) One shilling and uinepencc. Problem in Ages.—lt is easy to see that the two ages are 11 and 12, but the evidence of the extra penny is required to show that Dorothy is the elder. Savings Bank.—She makes her calculations at the rate of 6,5, and 4 shillings for each year, and when another year has elapsed her total will he 15" shillings more.

An Eastern Story.—This is much easier than it looks. The number of pence could not be more than 11 or less than 3, and the number of shillings could not be more than 19 or less than 11. Therefore, there were nine men who were sent to buy the stuff, and. the priqe was oneeighth, of the range between the two extremes, which is elevenpence. After this it is easy to see that there were 22 packages of it in the shop.