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I multiply a number which, when written in German, its letters are in alphabetical order, by a number which, when written in French, its letters are also in alphabetical order. The resulting product is a number which, when written in English, its letters are in alphabetical order.
What are the numbers?
I am a fan of the BBC Radio 4 show Round Britain Quiz. I have written a question in the style of the show:
Delve beneath the surface and you’ll find the following several leagues below:
300 sprightly sounding Greeks
The Blue Boy, his father and a ghost
Urban arboreal grey matter
And a handcart
What are they?
Fifteen friends are dotted around a city. They wish to meet up. They can only travel along streets and avenues.
Where should they meet that would minimise the total distance travelled?
This is an excerpt from my first book, Very Clever Puzzle Compendium: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/maxelkat
Orville and Wilbur are model aeroplane enthusiasts.
Orville: These new engines you bought are terrible – they keep breaking down in mid air.
Wilbur: I know! That’s why I’ve fitted my new plane with two engines, and as long as at least one of them is still working, it will continue to fly.
Orville: I’ve gone even better: I’ve fitted mine with four engines, and as long as at least two of them are still working, my plane will stay up.
Wilbur: That’s not necessarily better – it depends on exactly what the probability is of each of the engines failing.
Orville: How do you mean?
Wilbur: Well, for instance, if the individual engines break a quarter of the time, the chance of your plane falling from the sky just over five percent, and mine would fail just over six percent of the time.
Orville: So mine would be better!
Wilbur: Yes, but what if the engines break down exactly half of the time? My plane would come down a quarter of the time, and yours would crash just over thirty-one percent of the time – so mine would be better!
As it turned out the probability of each of the engines malfunctioning was a magic figure somewhere between one quarter and one half, where the probability of Wilbur’s two-engine plane and the probability of Orville’s four-engine plane crashing was exactly identical.
What was the probability of each engine failing?
This is an excerpt from my second book, Shadowbox Logical Crossword Puzzles: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/maxelkat
Place all of the words into the grid, crossword style.
A grey square will either contain a vowel (A, E, I, O, U) or will become a black square.
A white square will contain a consonant.
The final arrangement of black squares and letter squares will be symmetrical in horizontal, vertical and diagonal directions.
Can you name a non-alcoholic drink which has mead in it?
This puzzle re-uses the same glass vase from Puzzle of the Week #26. I added an encoded solution in the comments of that question.
I have a glass vase, with a square base and vertical sides. The vase is 50mm x 50mm, and 260mm high. The bottom 10mm is solid glass, and the remaining 250mm has 1mm thick glass walls.
The density of glass is 2.4 times that of water. When I pour a small amount of water into the vase, the centre of gravity is brought down slightly. As more water is added, at a certain point the centre of gravity will begin to creep back up.
How much water added to the vase, to the closest millilitre, will give the lowest centre of gravity for the vase and its contents?
Four cube-shaped dice have a different letter on each of their faces, so that between them they feature the first 24 letters of the alphabet, A to X, exactly once each.
I throw the four dice, and make a note of the four uppermost faces. I do this repeatedly, the results of which are shown below. Can you work out what letters are on each of the dice? The letters on one of the dice can be rearranged to form the surname of some famous brothers.
ACDI BKNW BHMO CNSW CIPQ CHSU CGLN DFRU DEOR DHVX EIMU FNST FILO JMNW QTUV
I have a glass vase, with a square base and vertical sides. The vase is 50mm x 50mm, and 260mm high. The bottom 10mm is solid glass, and the remaining 250mm has 1mm thick glass walls.
To the nearest millimetre, how high is the centre of gravity (from the base of the vase)?
Can you take a nine letter word for a type of large ship, and insert two new letters (without changing the order of the original nine letters) to form an eleven letter word for a heroic job?
This week's puzzle lies at the intersection of two of my interests: puzzles and parkrun.
There are currently 374 senior UK parkrun venues; these can be found at www.parkrun.org.uk/events
There are three events whose names contain all five vowels (a, e, i, o, u). Can you find them?
Can you think of five four-letter words, each beginning with SE?
Sounds simple, however you cannot use a letter more than once, and you can’t re-use the S or the E anywhere else. So for instance, SELL is not allowed, as it has two Ls, SEEK is not allowed as it repeats the E, and you cannot have both SENT and SEAT, as both have a T, but either word is acceptable on its own.
I have a hexagon, with six sides of equal length. Opposite pairs of sides are parallel, and the distances between these parallel sides are 7cm, 8cm and 9cm respectively.
What is the area of my hexagon?
I have taken some eight-letter words, and removed the first two letters and the last two letters. Can you work out what the words originally were?
_ _ MEMA _ _
_ _ VEAW _ _
_ _ ADAC _ _
_ _ REWE _ _
_ _ MEWO _ _
You have eight rods, four of length 11cm, and four of length 12cm.
Fixing these rods together end-to-end only, how can you create a three-dimensional shape that is precisely 7cm high?
Annabel moved from St Albans to Lancaster
Nicole moved from Newcastle to Enfield
Ted moved from Galashiels to Dorchester
Where did Harold move from and to?
In ancient Egypt, they only liked to use so-called unit fractions, which are fractions that have 1 as the numerator. If they wanted to represent a fraction that wasn't already a unit fraction, they would express as the sum of different unit fractions.
So, for instance 3/4 = 1/2 + 1/4. and 2/7 = 1/4 + 1/28.
How can you express 39/50 as a sum of different unit fractions?
Quotebreaker is back by popular demand! I have taken a quotation, and I have replaced each of the letters with one-, two- of three-digit numbers according to the table below. Can you change it back to letters?
Be careful though, as some sequences of numbers could lead to several words, for instance 31110 could mean CAT (3,1,110), but could equally mean MAD (31,1,10).
I have in mind a five-digit number. The first two digits form a square number. The last three digits also form a square number.
If I cube each of the five digits in turn and add them together I get 227.
What is my five-digit number?
I’ve used a micrometer to measure a bolt head, both from edge to edge, and from point to point.
I later realise that I had forgotten to ‘zero’ the micrometer before I used it, meaning that both measurements are wrong, but they are wrong by the same amount.
What should the measurements be?