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Ok then
T'other year I built a circular sheep pen out of concrete blocks. The pen was 10ft in diameter, the walls were 4ft 6inches high. there were 2 x 3ft gaps in the wall for gates. A concrete block when laid (ie including morter) is 18x9x6 inches. How many blocks were needed to complete the pen?
I'll just nip down to Travis Perkins - they have this useful computer programme which works out how many blocks/bricks etc you need to order for your project. It designs patio layouts too doing clever things with different shaped slabs, did me a lovely one last year, printed out a plan as well so that the chaps doing the patio could get the pieces in the right places......Oh, yes, the sheep pen....
Ahh, Travis Perkins the builder's merchant that sounds like a country and western singer.
1 foot = 12 inches (1.5 feet = 18 inches)Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
circumference= diameter x pi
In this case, we also will subtract out the two gaps (3 feet each)
circumference - gaps = 10pi - 6
the wall will be 9 bricks high (each brick is 6 inches "tall", so 9 of them make 4 feet 6 inches, if we ignore the mortar...). Therefore, we want circumference (minus the gaps) multiplied 9 times.
(10pi - 6) x 9
90pi - 54 = 283-54
229 feet of bricks is needed. Each brick is 1.5 feet "long".
229 divided by 1.5 = 152.7
So, 153 bricks? (17 per layer?)
The bricks are 9inches tall and 6 inches thick. However this is NOT a maths question!
I am prepared to receive plenty of scorn when answer is revealed.
One block, ugh.
To "complete" the pen.
And NOW I have to present the next puzzle, grrrrrr. Thought I had escaped got lucky, but... But--uh, well, hmph.
This next one is really great fun, very satisfying once the solution is encountered. Perhaps you've heard it? (Actually, I should say "twice"...)
Quote:
An explorer walks one mile due South, turns and walks one mile due East, turns again and walks one mile due North. And he's right back where he started. He sees a bear. What color is the bear?
Trick question. It changes colors. It's a bi-polar bear.
J
He's wearing a yellow and blue kagool.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/353...gy-crisis.html
That is a great, great Bear, Mick, but Antarctica doesn't work for the first step of the Puzzle.
(Although Jack is right about the way that a single, pawticular answer would only bearly be scratching the surface of the explanation(s))
The speed of their service is much the same as an average c&w mournful ballad too - you need a picnic lunch to while away the waiting time at our local branch.Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
btw - did you know my psychology lecturer? That's the sort of question he used to pose as an example of 'sett' in thinking: it sounds like a maths question, therefore...
ummm - billl - wouldn't the explorer have to walk a mile due west before he was back where he began? Or did the bear put him off his stride?
What happens to compasses at the North Pole? That's not a trick question, I'm just curious.
grrrr...
(kasie, you could probably amp up the scorn just a little more than that "btw" business...)
billl, billl - no scorn intended, I promise....(smoothes ruffled feathers hastily......) And the btw was to Mick, really, about his 'maths' problem, just an aside, not a comment on the quality of the puzzles set in this remarkable thread. Who am I to talk? Who left her brain on the 12.45 from Paddington and took a day to be reunited with it? (It got on the slow stopping train at Newport and sat on the station till I came to collect it, it's taking a while to get warm again.)
@kasie: Oh, yes, I totally was referring to the scorn that Mick had so brazenly (but disingenuously?) predicted would be raining down on him. *That's* what I was hoping for more of, with no other suspicions present. I was totally focussed on that.
Just now noticed this portion of your post, Kasie. Good question about the North Pole! That's, of course, a starting point that would probably indicate a bear that was white in color. And there's our answer. Polar bear.Quote:
Originally Posted by kasie
I don't know what would happen to a compass 'up' there, but I guess the puzzle assumes no problems, or GPS or star-navigation, if there's any problem with the compass.
OK, so that's a pretty cool puzzle, and it has baffled, amused, and caused surges of pride in people for ages--but it was brought to the attention of Scientific American's Martin Gardner that the the North Pole is not at all the only starting point that would qualify as a solution to this classic puzzle.
If any of you already know (knew) the answer to "Where else?", I'd suggest we give some of the regulars on this thread some time to think it over, and see if they can come up with it...
To reiterate where we are (because all of that might look confusing), we have the classic:
along with the classic answer: "White". This is because the explorer would be at the North Pole, becasue if one begins at the North Pole and follows the marching directions, one ends up back where one started (the North Pole).Quote:
An explorer walks one mile due South, turns and walks one mile due East, turns again and walks one mile due North. And he's right back where he started. He sees a bear. What color is the bear?
However, The North Pole is not the only possible starting point that would bring the explorer back to where he started, given the above directions (one mile South, one mile East, one mile North). Where else would it happen?
Quote:
Originally Posted by billl
Any point on the equator?
No - hang on. I'm halfway through a thought....
This has to do witha halfmile radius around the South Pole. If I hadnt just drunk two bottles of Pinot Grigio, I'd have this...
Mick? Kasie?
Yes, one of you, please carry Mark across the finish line!
Couldn't you start anywhere, walk a mile north, then a mile east, then one south, then one west and be back where you started? You would have walked a square though I suppose you'd have to be north of the Arctic Circle or somewhere near a zoo to see a polar bear.
Didn't save me any of that Pinot Grigio, I see, Mark.
I think I know what Mark was getting at before the wine kicked in.
You would have to walk south to a point near the south pole so that when you turn east and walk exactly one mile, you have circumnavigated the pole and ended up at the same place where you turned east. Then you walk north for one mile and you are back where you started from.
Ah, yes--Mick and the circles. That's right. Start at (1 + 1.5 Pi) miles North of the South Pole--the latitudinal circle that is 1.5 Pi miles North of the South Pole has a one mile circumference. (It also turns out that a 1/2 mile circumference circle, or a 1/4 mile cirle, etc. would also work.)
Anyhow, the Bear Grylls photo was a pretty good answer, really.
Thanks billl - and Mark for his wine fuelled inspiration.
On a lighter note, here are some bazaar headlines with a word taken out by me. You have to guess the missing word.
NATIONAL HUNTING GROUP TARGETING women
STOLEN PAINTINGS FOUND BY tree
U.S. ADVICE. KEEP drinking WATER FROM SEWAGE
LOW wages ARE KEY TO POVERTY
**** OFF WOMAN'S LEG HELPS NICKLAUS TO 66
chilbirth IS BIG STEP TO PARENTHOOD
POLICE KILL YOUTH IN EFFORT TO STOP HIS suicide ATTEMPT
YOUTH HIT BY CAR riding BICYCLE
FIRE OFFICIALS ******* OVER KEROSENE HEATERS.
Some guesses:
National Hunting Group Targeting Rifle
U.S. Advice: Keep Drinking Water From Sewage
Intercourse Is Big Step To Parenthood
Police Kill Youth In Effort To Stop His Suicide Attempt
Youth Hit By Car Riding Bicycle
Not bad J, three right and two wrong.
Low hanging fruit stains these cheeks.
J
NATIONAL HUNTING GROUP TARGETING press
LOW wages ARE KEY TO POVERTY
chip OFF WOMAN'S LEG HELPS NICKLAUS TO 66
conception IS BIG STEP TO PARENTHOOD
FIRE OFFICIALS enraged OVER KEROSENE HEATERS.
One right bill. You need to get even stranger.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack of Hearts
Which cheeks?
Well, given enough time, all of them.
J
ball OFF WOMAN'S LEG HELPS NICKLAUS TO 66
motherhood IS BIG STEP TO PARENTHOOD
(these are tough, both of these are probably duds)
Youth hit by car impersonating bicycle.
A few clues there.Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
"pregnancy" doesn't have enough letters to match up with the asterisks...
Hmm, alot nearer to motherhood than conception, infact overlapping slightly.
Stolen Paintings Found by (either pies/tree?)
Cuts Off Woman's Leg Helps Nicklaus to 66 (... not gramatically correct, though)
Copulation Is Big Step Toward Parenthood
National Hunting Group Targeting Women
Fire Officials Flamber Over Kerosene Heaters (flamber, as in the regular '-er' french verb whose past participle is flambé? Or the english word flaming, this reader's only other guess...)
FIRE OFFICIALS steamed OVER KEROSENE HEATERS.
Nice, billl.
J
I don't think it's a sure thing. Looks like a natural, but I have trouble imagining fire officials getting angry (steamed) about the particular way people heat their homes. I can imagine them telling families to take precautions. I can see them going to the government or the press to talk about the dangers of kerosene heaters, the use of which creates problems that they will inevitably have to deal with in their brave and stoic way. Exasperated, maybe, but angry? The'd have every right to be angry, but it just doesn't seem like a firefighter's style.
Sometimes you have to error a little on the side of bad punditry.
Childbirth Is Big Step Into Parenthood? (last guess, promise... multiple guesses seem like bad form. Egads, embarrassing enthusiasm.)
J
Jack: What do you mean "a little"! You have to rush over and embrace it here.
billl: Steamed should've been right, but aint. The word used has an implied criticism of the Firemen! Which is unusual, I know.
We're creeping towards the finish line. Childbirth, Women and Tree are right. Still to get are the poor woman's traumatised leg and the hostile questioning of the Fire Officials .