How to become a scientist : $b Giving interesting and instructive experiments in chemistry, mechanics, acoustics and pyrotechnicsWarford, Aaron A.
Science
How to become a scientist : $b Giving interesting and instructive experiments in chemistry, mechanics, acoustics and pyrotechnics
Warford, Aaron A.
Scientific recreations
The Certain Game.
Two persons agree to take, alternately, numbers less than a given
figure, for example, 11, and to add them together till one of them
has reached a certain sum, such as 100. By what means can one of them
infallibly attain to that number before the other?
The whole artifice in this consists in immediately making choice of the
numbers, 1, 12, 23, 34, and so on, or of a series which continually
increases by 11, up to 100. Let us suppose that the first person, who
knows the game, makes choice of 1, it is evident that his adversary, as
he must count less than 11, can at most reach 11, by adding 10 to it.
The first will then take 1, which will make 12; and whatever number the
second may add, the first will certainly win, provided he continually
add the number which forms the complement of that of his adversary to
11; that is to say, if the latter take 8, he must take 3; if 9, he must
take 2; and so on. By following this method, he will infallibly attain
to 89, and it will then be impossible for the second to prevent him
from getting first to 100; for whatever number the second takes he can
attain only to 99; after which the first may say--“and 1 makes 100.”
If the second take 1 after 89, it would make 90, and his adversary
would finish by saying--“and 10 make 100.” Between two persons who are
equally acquainted with the game, he who begins must necessarily win.
The Dice Guessed Unseen.
A pair of dice being thrown, to find the number of points on each die
without seeing them. Tell the person who cast the dice to double the
number of points upon one of them, and add 5 to it; then to multiply
the sum produced by 5, and to add to the product the number of points
upon the other die. This being done, desire him to tell you the amount,
and having thrown out 25, the remainder will be a number consisting of
two figures, the first of which, to the left, is the number of points
on the first die, and the second figure, to the right, the number of
the other. Thus:
Suppose the number of points of the first die which comes up to be 2,
and that of the other 3; then, if to 4, the double of the points of
the first, there be added 5, and the sum produced, 9, be multiplied
by 5, the product will be 45; to which, if 3, the number of points on
the other die, be added, 48 will be produced, from which, if 25 be
subtracted, 23 will remain; the first figure of which is 2, the number
of points on the first die, and the second figure 3, the number on the
other.
The Famous Forty-five.
How can number 45 be divided into four such parts that, if to the
first part you add 2, from the second part you subtract 2, the third
part you multiply by 2, and the fourth part you divide by 2, the sum
of the addition, the remainder of the subtraction, the product of the
multiplication, and the quotient of the division, be all equal?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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