Daily puzzles/problems.

[billl]

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.

[billl]

This next one is really great fun, very satisfying once the solution is encountered. Perhaps you've heard it? (Actually, I should say "twice"...)

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?

[Jack of Hearts]

Trick question. It changes colors. It's a bi-polar bear.






J

[prendrelemick]

He's wearing a yellow and blue kagool.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/353...gy-crisis.html

[billl]

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))

[kasie]

Ahh, Travis Perkins the builder's merchant that sounds like a country and western singer.

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.

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.

[billl]

grrrr...

(kasie, you could probably amp up the scorn just a little more than that "btw" business...)

[kasie]

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.)

[billl]

@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.

[billl]

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.

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.

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...

[billl]

To reiterate where we are (because all of that might look confusing), we have the classic:

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?

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).

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?

[MarkBastable]

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).

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?

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?

[billl]

Yes, one of you, please carry Mark across the finish line!

[kasie]

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.

[prendrelemick]

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.