Our Mini-Contests are back! With
this Mini-Contest we would like to announce that Puzzles.COM resumes the
practice of providing puzzle Mini-Contests on its pages. Thus this one is
the 25th Mini-Contest or the 1st one in the new series.
Simultaneously this is our fifth Mini-Contest with the
PuzzlePLAYGROUND sector. The names of the solvers who submitted the
correct solutions to this puzzle (when the contest is complete) will be
presented within the Puzzle Help sector too.
Now we invite you to the
PuzzlePLAYGROUND sector to take part in Mini-Contest 25.
From time to time we are receiving your
messages with seemingly simple requests which turn out to be hard puzzle
nuts even for us, though. In these cases our search was unsuccessful.
Nobody can know everything!
At the moment we have a pretty big collection of such perplexing questions
featured in the first part of
Help
with... Help series. This is the second part of such messages that
we've collected for the several recent months.
It easily can be that somebody of you knows some answer to any of the
questions below, so any your tips or help will be greatly appreciated -
simply
Contact
Us.
Question: If Barbara's daughter is my daughters mother, what am I to Barbara?
B.
Answer: The answer is that you have to be son-in-law to Barbara. But on the other hand if you speak of "Barbara's daughter" and do not forbid that you could be that person as well then the answer could be that you are daughter to Barbara.
But let's return to the son-in-law version. How is it figured out? It is clear from the sentence that you have a daughter (the words "my daughter") and some person that is related to Barbara as daughter is simultaneously mother to your daughter. If you do not speak of yourself then there could be only one proper relationship between you and your daughter in order that it would be true - that is when you are a father. It means you are a husband to Barbara's daughter or son-in-law to Barbara herself.
Question: Had this one given to me by a friend and there is a $200 bar tab riding on it. Just can't afford to miss on a nights free drinking so am needing help.
A RIDDLE THAT WILL KILL YOUR BRAIN!
There are three words in the English language that end in "gry". One is angry and the other is hungry. EveryONE knows what the third One means and what it stands for. EveryONE uses them everyday, and if you listened carefully, I have given you the third word. What is it? _____gry?
Question: Is there more than one solution for this puzzle?
Pat B.
Question: The nine-dot puzzle. I see you can make 3 straight lines by covering all the dots. But I do not see where you can do one straight line and get all the dots.
Michelle
Question: My Professor gave us an assignment with the nine points. She want's us to connect all nine points with ONE line. Is this possible? We done this with the 4 lines, and 3 lines.
U.
Question: CAN YOU SOLVE THIS 3 BY 3 , DOT PUZZLE WITH THREE LINES???oR ONLY FOUR??
THANKX
B.
Answer: The classic solution to this puzzle is the one with four lines, not counting its own reflections or rotations.
On the other hand several "non-standard", sometimes tricky, solutions have been found to this puzzle as well. Mainly it concerns the solutions with three or one lines.
Solution with three lines. In order to cover all the nine dots with three lines you have to consider the dots not as geometrical points but rather as some objects that have some size in their diameter. In such a case three lines are enough. The solution will remind you a kind of zig-zag drawn through the three rows (or columns) of such dots.
Solution with one line. In such a case you can use, for example, one CURVED line instead of the straight line. Or you can use the straight line which is thick enough to cover three dots at once, i.e. three points in width.
Inside the packing of the Kit Kat
What is the difference between 1 (or 4) and 6 ?
Thanks
Roger C.
Answer: Actually there could be several answers to it. For example, the difference between 1 (or 4) and 6 is 5 (or 2). Or the difference is that 1 (or 4) is made of straight lines only while 6 - of curves. Or that 1 when turned upside-down is still 1 while 6 turned upside-down is 9. Moreover, seems there is still room for creativity in this puzzle. :)
Question: Hey,
I have a puzzle that i don't know the soln of, and no one seems to be able to work it out either (we are also not entirely sure that it is even possible!), but here goes.
There are a dozen eggs, and one is faulty. The faulty egg is either heavier or lighter, but you don't know which.
You can use a balance scale (that doesn't actually tell u how much the difference is, only which side is heavier/lighter or equal) 3 times only. How do you find out which is the faulty egg?
Thx!
Tracy
Answer: Solution to this puzzle (except that it is with coins) can be found on The Ultimate Puzzle Site - exactly at http://puzzle.dse.nl/math/index_us.html. The puzzle is called Coin Weighing and it is 23rd on the list (almost at the bottom of the page). The complete solution and the explanations to it can be found here.
Question: Please help me in solving the following
puzzles.
1. A ship went on a voyage. After it had travelled 180 miles a plane started with 10 times the speed of the ship.
Find the distance when they meet from starting point.
2. Replace each letter by a digit.
Each letter must be represented by the same digit and no beginning letter of a word can be 0.
O N E
O N E
O N E
O N E
-------
T E N
Regards
Priti
Answer: This message from Priti has inspired us to include the second puzzle from it into our PuzzlePLAYGROUND sector. We called it Sum-One. The solution to it can be found there as well.
Thank you, Priti.
The solution to the first puzzle. The ship and the plane will meet at 200 miles from the starting point: while the ship travels 20 miles in addition to the 180 miles (200 in total), the plane travels exactly 10 times those 20 miles (because of it's speed), or 200 miles as well.
Question: I have several problems I am working on can you please help??
1. what is unusual about this sentence: "Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz."
2. a well known fashion designer wanting to escape the hustle and bustle of the city decided to spend a few days at a rural
resort. After a day of relaxing she went for a winter stroll to get some fresh air. That was the last time anyone saw her alive. autopsy revealed that her death was caused by the pack on her back. What was so deadly about this pack?
3. It is impossible to survive for more than 7 days without drinking, yet Abdullah managed a 10 day desert crossing without finding or bringing any water. How was this possible?
Randall C.
Answer: It is really hard to say what answer could be to the first problem. Thus we've included it into Help with Help - part 2 item of this section. Maybe some of our visitors could help us with this question.
The answer to the second problem. The designer went to climb a mountain. As usual there is rarefied air higher in the mountains. That's why the special oxygen cylinders (with the oxygen inside) are used in order to breathe up there. Surely the designer took such cylinders with her in her backpack but she didn't estimate her climb time accurately and the oxygen run out before she decided to step down.
The answer to the third problem. Abdullah is camel. Camels can survive without water much longer than humans.
Answer: To Puzzles.com staff,
I'm writing to give an alternate solution to the third part of problem 88 from the puzzle help section (the puzzle follows this message). Abdullah could have made a ten-day desert crossing without taking water with him or being a camel. Deserts are areas of very low rainfall. This includes polar deserts. Instead of being covered with sand, they are of course covered with ice or snow. This could have been heated to give drinking water. (I suppose this could come under finding water...)
The solution is not my own, but comes (I think?) from a game called MindTrap.
Thanks,
Rhys
Answer: I was reading some of the puzzles in the help section when I noticed
these [above]...
Within a matter of seconds, I found an answer to question 1 and a better answer to question 2.
For #1: It is one of a few sentences that use all 26 letters of the alphabet.
For #2: I never really thought about the pack on her back as being air tanks. Whoever thought of that analyzed the situation a little too much I think. My answer to this question is that the pack on her back was not a backpack, but a deadly pack of wolves that had attacked her while on her snowy hike. Doesn't that make a lot more sense. The story never said she was climbing a mountain; it said that she was at a RURAL resort. I am a 17 year old country boy myself and know about the dangers of a pack of wolves first-hand.
Don't take me wrong; the answer about the tanks is possible and creative, but a little over-thought.
Sincerily,
Wes G.
Comment: As a puzzle site we are always trying to consider any possible solution to a puzzle, even if it is quite non-standard than any other. Thus we thankful to all our visitors for any improvements to puzzles and solutions to them.
Question:
I just saw on your website that it is impossible to make
a box with a x in it. However, my friend who gave me the
puzzle said that he swears that there is an answer. If
there is could you tell me how to find the sollution. If
not could you tell me if there is a way that he could
have thought he solved it. I hope to hear from you soon.
He also said it took him 2 years to find it. thanks.
Question: ok i have to make a box with the x in it and i cant relap or pick up my pencil is this possible if so please send it to me i would really really appreciate it and thank you for your time!
S.
Answer: Unfortunately it is impossible to draw this pattern in one line. This is almost the same pattern (except for the round bounds) as in the second pattern of The Unicursal Marathon puzzle in our PuzzlePLAYGROUND sector (see the solution to this puzzle). This pattern is marked among others which can not be drawn with pencil in one continuous line so that you don't take the pencil point off the paper.
Question: Please Explain Why is that the answer for "Send More Money".
D.
Answer: In this type of puzzles the objective is to replace every letter in some statement with the digits (0 through 9) in order to make the calculation hidden behind the statement true. A letter is replaced with a digit. One more rule is applied to these puzzles. When you replace a letter with some certain digit then this letter should be replaced with the SAME digit in any other place where it is in the statement. For instance, in "Send More Money" we replace letter "e" with digit 5. This means the second letter in "Send", the last letter in "More" and the fourth one in "Money" are replaced exactly with the digit 5. And at the same time it means that no other letter in the statement will not be replaced with 5, because it is exactly "e" that corresponds to 5. Of course, to solve the puzzles of this type the some logical and combinatorial approach is required.
