mightaswell: August 2007

my Page up

my Page up is a very innovative paper holder my boss just showed to me

Like puzzles? here's a good start :

3. The Fake Coin
You have twelve coins. You know that one is fake. The only thing that distinguishes the fake coin from the real coins is that its weight is imperceptibly different. You have a perfectly balanced scale. The scale only tells you which side weighs more than the other side.
What is the smallest number of times you must use the scale in order to always find the fake coin?
Use only the twelve coins themselves and no others, no other weights, no cutting coins, no pencil marks on the scale. etc.
These are modern coins, so the fake coin is not necessarily lighter.
Presume the worst case scenario, and don't hope that you will pick the right coin on the first attempt.

Here are a few more.

Some more general info about puzzles & their history:
Logic puzzle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "A logic puzzle is a puzzle deriving from the mathematics field of deduction. This branch was produced by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who is better known under his pseudonym Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In his book The Game of Symbolic Logic he introduced a game to solve problems such as some games are fun every puzzle is a game Are all puzzles fun? Not Necessarily. "

Few more links here

Perpetual motion machine proposals are often dismissed by scientists in a manner that appears to the layperson as hasty rejection using dogmatic assertions that such machines are prohibited from working by the "laws of thermodynamics". This does not satisfy the person who knows a little physics, but considers the laws of thermodynamics a bit mysterious. The very character of such laws is off-putting to the average person, because they have an air of finality and negativity.

This "overbalanced wheel" idea reappeared in an astounding variety of forms over the centuries. We show a better diagram from a later time. A system of pegs or stops was required to hold the hammers at a large distance from the axle after they flipped over the top and allow them to hang freely as they came around the other side. Perhaps the rationale was that the balls had more moment (of inertia) on one side due to the larger lever arms (even though the principles of torque hadn't yet been formalized at this time).

You can see all the bezzare things here

Puzzle Classification 2006 provisional revision

Puzzle Classification 2006 provisional revision

FOLDING & HINGED PUZZLES (FOL) have parts that are joined together and usually do not come apart. They are solved by hinging, flexing, or folding

"Gömböc"

Gömböc - stemstone

The "Gömböc" is the first homogeneous, convex object having just one stable and one unstable point of equilibrium.

MathTrek: Can't Knock It Down

Can't Knock It Down
The "Comeback Kid" is a wooden toy with an intriguing property: No matter which way you set it down—on its head, for example, or on its side—it turns itself upright. Two factors account for this: the object's shape, and the fact that the bottom of the toy is heavier than the top.

Give mathematicians such a toy, and they're liable to turn it into a math problem.
Mathematicians Gábor Domokos of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and Péter Várkonyi of Princeton University wondered if they could make an improved version that wouldn't require the weight at the bottom to right itself. Could the shape of the object alone be enough to pull it upright?

Antel kelle

Antele kelle is regarded as one of the most successful designers of wooden toys in Hungary. I just loved his geometrical toys. Very elegant and beautiful !

Thanx to his NID visit and the NID magazine "Design Plus" for the info.