A farmer had a square cornfield. The corn was all ripe for reaping, and,
as he was short of men, it was arranged that he and his son should share
the work between them. The farmer first cut one rod wide all round the
square, thus leaving a smaller square of standing corn in the middle of
the field. "Now," he said to his son, "I have cut my half of the field,
and you can do your share." The son was not quite satisfied as to the
proposed division of labour, and as the village schoolmaster happened to
be passing, he appealed to that person to decide the matter. He found
the farmer was quite correct, provided there was no dispute as to the
size of the field, and on this point they were agreed. Can you tell the
area of the field, as that ingenious schoolmaster succeeded in doing?
112.--A PUZZLING LEGACY.
A man left a hundred acres of land to be divided among his three
sons--Alfred, Benjamin, and Charles--in the proportion of one-third,
one-fourth, and one-fifth respectively. But Charles died. How was the
land to be divided fairly between Alfred and Benjamin?
113.--THE TORN NUMBER.
[Illustration]
I had the other day in my possession a label bearing the number 3 0 2 5
in large figures. This got accidentally torn in half, so that 3 0 was on
one piece and 2 5 on the other, as shown on the illustration. On looking
at these pieces I began to make a calculation, scarcely conscious of
what I was doing, when I discovered this little peculiarity. If we add
the 3 0 and the 2 5 together and square the sum we get as the result the
complete original number on the label! Thus, 30 added to 25 is 55, and
55 multiplied by 55 is 3025. Curious, is it not? Now, the puzzle is to
find another number, composed of four figures, all different, which may
be divided in the middle and produce the same result.
114.--CURIOUS NUMBERS.
The number 48 has this peculiarity, that if you add 1 to it the result
is a square number (49, the square of 7), and if you add 1 to its half,
you also get a square number (25, the square of 5). Now, there is no
limit to the numbers that have this peculiarity, and it is an
interesting puzzle to find three more of them--the smallest possible
numbers. What are they?
115.--A PRINTER'S ERROR.
In a certain article a printer had to set up the figures 5^4x2^3, which,
of course, means that the fourth power of 5 (625) is to be multiplied by
the cube of 2 (8), the product of which is 5,000. But he printed 5^4x2^3
as 5 4 2 3, which is not correct. Can you place four digits in the
manner shown, so that it will be equally correct if the printer sets it
up aright or makes the same blunder?
116.--THE CONVERTED MISER.
Mr. Jasper Bullyon was one of the very few misers who have ever been
converted to a sense of their duty towards their less fortunate
fellow-men. One eventful night he counted out his accumulated wealth,
and resolved to distribute it amongst the deserving poor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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