The Canterbury Puzzles, and Other Curious ProblemsDudeney, Henry Ernest
Science
The Canterbury Puzzles, and Other Curious Problems
Dudeney, Henry Ernest
Puzzles; Riddles
The four pigs are so placed, each in a separate sty, that although every
one of the thirty-six sties is in a straight line (either horizontally,
vertically, or diagonally), with at least one of the pigs, yet no pig is
in line with another. In how many different ways may the four pigs be
placed to fulfil these conditions? If you turn this page round you get
three more arrangements, and if you turn it round in front of a mirror
you get four more. These are not to be counted as different arrangements.
[Illustration]
93.--_The Number Blocks._
The children in the illustration have found that a large number of very
interesting and instructive puzzles may be made out of number blocks;
that is, blocks bearing the ten digits or Arabic figures--1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, 8, 9, and 0. The particular puzzle that they have been amusing
themselves with is to divide the blocks into two groups of five, and then
so arrange them in the form of two multiplication sums that one product
shall be the same as the other. The number of possible solutions is very
considerable, but they have hit on that arrangement that gives the
smallest possible product. Thus, 3,485 multiplied by 2 is 6,970, and
6,970 multiplied by 1 is the same. You will find it quite impossible to
get any smaller result.
[Illustration]
Now, my puzzle is to find the largest possible result. Divide the blocks
into any two groups of five that you like, and arrange them to form two
multiplication sums that shall produce the same product and the largest
amount possible. That is all, and yet it is a nut that requires some
cracking. Of course, fractions are not allowed, nor any tricks whatever.
The puzzle is quite interesting enough in the simple form in which I have
given it. Perhaps it should be added that the multipliers may contain two
figures.
94.--_Foxes and Geese._
Here is a little puzzle of the moving counters class that my readers will
probably find entertaining. Make a diagram of any convenient size similar
to that shown in our illustration, and provide six counters--three marked
to represent foxes and three to represent geese. Place the geese on the
discs 1, 2, and 3, and the foxes on the discs numbered 10, 11, and 12.
Now the puzzle is this. By moving one at a time, fox and goose
alternately, along a straight line from one disc to the next one, try to
get the foxes on 1, 2, and 3, and the geese on 10, 11, and 12--that is,
make them exchange places--in the fewest possible moves.
[Illustration]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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