People With Too Much Free Time


Puzzle 3

Christopher Oliver got this one as well as the first two. His method for the first one gave me a headache... What the heck is congruency mod 4?

Several other people have gotten this, including Adrian, Nikki, Jen, Barb, Christine and Tom Roland of the Tuesday Lab Group of Cell Biology, University of Notre Dame. What I want to know is what the heck are they doing solving puzzles in Lab? Update: They claim they have to do something "while running a gel". I don't even want to know...

Mark Solis had a nice methodical, step-by-step solution to this one.


Puzzle 2

Mike Petrucelli was the first to get this one!

Several other people have gotten this, including Adrian, Nikki, Jen, Barb, and Christine of the Tuesday Lab Group of Cell Biology, University of Notre Dame. See above...

Mark Solis got this one by using, and I quote:

SOLIS'S SECOND LAW FOR
SOLVING BRAIN TEASERS:

Work right-to-left, NOT left-to-right.

Puzzle 1

Congratulations to Chris Darrow! He has a real job, though, so has lots of time to waste on this kind of thing. We students have more important things to do. Like bike, ski, roller-blade, etc...

My mom and dad finally got it...

> I want you to know that your father and I have wasted an entire evening
> trying to figure out your stupid brain teaser. Using higher math and
> mirrors (well, mirrors anyway), we have concluded that the correct
> answer is: XXX, XXX and XXX for the turtles, XXX for the visitor, who ought
> to find something better to do with her life.

Some people from the UK got it...

Date: Wed, 03 May 95 15:34:20 -700
From: Stuart Fairall 
To: kevin@www.fink.com
Subject: Solution to Puzzle 1

Hope its right, three tortoises aged XXX, XXX, XXX. Visitor aged XXX.
Joint effort, Myself, D. Armitage and A. Dawson all helped out.
Throughly enjoyed it.  Brute force to get down to 18 and combined
head scratching after that.
Hope to see some more.
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1996 14:20:11 -0700
From: Bretto 
To: kevin@www.fink.com
Subject: Re: Revisiting Puzzle #1

Kevin,

Yes, please do add us to the list of People With Too Much Free
Time.  But don't mention how much free time we actually used.
We're supposed to be working here.  :)

Brett and Nigel from Rockwell
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 11:45:16 -0700
From: Miles Dunagan or Brian Moseley 
Subject: 3rd time is a charm

ADD MY NAME  TO THE "List of People With Too Much Free Time"!  The light
finally clicked on today and now I realize how simple the answer has
been all along.  
.
.
....THE ONLY POSSIBLE UNIQUE SOLUTION TO PUZZLE #1.  Whew.  Now it is
time to work on the 12 balls and one scale puzzle.   Thanks for the
challenge.
         Brian Moseley   ... News Helicopter Pilot Extraordinaire
Lots of other people, including:
Kevin Fink's Home Page (http://www.fink.com/Kevin.html)

kevin@fink.com