Worlds most baffling puzzles by charles townsend

The World's Most Baffling "Number" Puzzle To solve the puzzle just arrange the four Jives in the above winning picture so that their collective value equals 56... The World's Most Baff

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Charles Townsend

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WORLD'S MOST

Charles Townsend

ORJENT PAPERBACKS

A Division of Vision Books Pvt Ltd

New Delhi • Bombay

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Dedication

To Dwight Dobbins, the best cartoonist I've ever known Thanks Dwlght for making the Puzzle Club come alive In our book and magazine collaborations I look forward to other puzzling adventures on Old Oak Island in the future

Edited by Jeanette Green

ISBN-81-222-0155-5 1st Published 1993 2nd Printing 1994

World's Most Baffling Puzzles

Published in arrangement with

Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., USA

Published by

Orient Paperbacks

(A Division of Vision Books Pvt Ltd.)

Madarsa Road, Kashmere Gate, Delhi-110 006

Printed in India at Cambridge Press, Delhi-110 006

Cover Printed at Ravindra Printing Press, Delhi ! 10 006

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Contents

Introduction 4

Puzzles 5 Answers 103 Index 127

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Introduction

Once again I have the happy chore of welcoming our ers to another go at solving the world's most intriguing puzzles This is my fourth book for Sterling Publishing in this series, and I'm happy to report that the material con-tained herein is every bit as interesting and challenging

read-as the problems presented in the preceding books Once again we've combed the archives of puzzledom to bring you the widest possible variety of mental amusements Some of the conundrums awaiting you deal with juggling, cards, and bottle caps Tricky trials involving geography, cocoa tins, an elevator, and a lighthouse are sure to test your problem-solving abilities As always, we've done our best to find the most interesting and amusing illustra-tions to accompany our presentation So, sharpen your pencils—and your wits—and get set to tackle over 90 of

the World's Most Baffling Puzzles

Charles Barry Townsend

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PUZZLES

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The World's Most Baffling

"Number" Puzzle

To solve the puzzle just arrange the four Jives in the above

winning picture so that their collective value equals 56

6

"This is it, folks! The

winner of this year's

number 5 contest!"

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"Water and Wine" Puzzle

w C Fields, who began his career as a juggler, is shown here balancing a priceless ciystal vase on top of a plate

Mr Fields assures us that we can master this feat with only one minute of practice See if you can figure out how before looking up the answer

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Desperate Desmond, the local con artist, has a new scam

So, watch out! First he bends down the two opposite ners of his business card He then places the card on the table so that it stands on these two corners Desmond then bets everyone present that they can't blow the card over When all have failed, he bets them that he can flip it over with a single puff Can you figure out how this natty bag-of-wind accomplishes this bit of trickeiy?

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cor-The World's Most Baffling

Old Saint Nick has a smashing Xmas puzzle for you After fastening an ornament to one end of a three-foot piece of string, he tied the other end to an overhead bunch of mistletoe

"I'll double your Xmas present," he said, "if you can cut that string right in the middle and not have the ornament fall and smash on the floor Remember: Once you've cut through the string you can't touch the string or the or-nament in any way."

What's it going to be, reader, two Mercedeses for Xmas or the old bituminous coal?

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You don't have to be a magician to solve this problem, but your friends will think you are Tell them you're going to show them a puzzle based on lightning calculation After discarding all the face cards and tens from the pack, take the remaining cards, and start laying them down on the table in groups of three Explain to your audience that each group of three cards forms a three-digit number that can be divided by 11 without leaving a remainder You form these three-digit numbers as fast as you can lay down the cards

In our example we have the number 231 Eleven goes into this number exactly 21 times How is this marvelous feat accomplished?

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This is a real stopper of a puzzle besides being a darn good solitaire game First, lay out a game board with six squares to a side as pictured above Then round up 12 bottle caps and you're ready to play The object of the puzzle is to place the bottle caps in 12 different squares

on the board in such a manner that no more than 2 caps are in the same row—horizontally, vertically, or diago-nally

We provide one answer at the back of the book, but I think there are many more

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The Reverend I N Spire is once again in a spiritual dary Last night, during a tremendous rainstorm, a gust

quan-of wind toppled the cross from the church steeple, ing it spinning to the ground where it split into five pieces Sexton Winslow has vowed to mend the cross and return it to its perch of distinction, if he can only figure out how to reassemble the pieces A revelation is defi-nitely in order Can you help the Reverend and Winslow see the light and solve this mystery?

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send-The World's Mcst Baffling

"Business Survey" Puzzle

<-From the looks of things, I'd say Sylvester's Surveys is a

booming concern Just don't ask them about the

mus-tard account that got away They were hired by the

Vol-cano Mustard Company to find out how many people like

hot mustard and how many like mild The report they

presented reads:

Number of people surveyed 300 Number of hot mustard users 234 Number of mild mustard users 213 Number who used both hot and mild 144

Number who never used mustard 0 After the Volcano Mustard Company digested this re-

port, they erupted and promptly fired Sylvester's Surveys

for gross inaccuracies Can you spot the errors in their

report?

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Mr Percy Poindexter, the famous after-dinner puzzle pert, is shown here at his wit's end trying to solve the old Water and Wine puzzle It goes like this: You have two glasses each filled with exactly the same amount of liquid One contains water, the other, wine First take a tea-spoon of water from the water glass and pour it into the wine glass Next stir the wine and water until well mixed Then take a teaspoon of the water and wine mixture and pour it into the glass of water

ex-The question now is: is there more wine in the water glass than water in the wine glass, or is there less?

1 4

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" W a t e r a n d W i n e " Puzzle

This picture of a rather ornate 1870s Otis Elevator brings

to mind a story we heard recently It seems that every morning, at 8 AM, a businessman would leave his apart-ment on the 45th floor and ride the self-service elevator to the lobby level where his limo was outside waiting for him Every evening he returned to the building and rode the same elevator up to the 40th floor, where he got out and walked up the remaining five floors to his apartment Once in a while he rode all the way to the 45th floor, but this only happened occasionally Can you explain the rather eccentric behavior of this gentleman?

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The World's Most Baffling;

"Lighthouse" Puzzle

"All right, ladles and gentlemen, the next item on our program is the Cross-to-Square contest The contestants must cut the cardboard cross into four equal pieces that can then be put together to form a perfect square The hitch is that the square must be the same height and width as the cross before it was cut up On your mark, get set, start snipping."

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You don't have to be clairvoyant to solve this puzzle, but

it sure would help! Paul and Vivian are shown here municating with what looks like the spirit of a Siamese Fighting Fish I don't know how they did it but I'm told that the planchette drew this picture with a single line and that the pencil never left the paper nor did the line ever cross itself at any point Do you think that you can duplicate this drawing while adhering to these other-worldly rules?

com-1 7

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"Mystical S q u a r e " Puzzle

This Indian prince of puzzlers is on his way to a puzzle convention in Agra Printed on the cloth that covers the royal elephant is his contribution to the lively arts To solve it, you must determine how many squares, both big and small, are contained within the drawing You have five minutes before the caravan moves on

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In our illustration Hash House Harriet is calling out for

an order of eggs on toast We've arranged the sentence to' form a tasty puzzle for you to solve If you replace each letter with a number, using the same number for the same letter wherever it appears, you can make a correct mathematical expression out of her colorful mode of speech Since there are several answers to this puzzle, you must come up with the answer that will give you the highest possible total

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Our next problem is a lesson in geography Hidden in the above chart are the names of four cities, all beginning with the same letter To find them, you must first find the letter in question and then proceed to spell out the names going in four different directions With the exception of the first letter, no letter in the chart is used twice

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In this sweet problem you are given a sealed tin of Baker's Breakfast Cocoa, full of cocoa, and a twelve-inch ruler Can you measure the inside of the tin, without opening

it, to determine the length of the box's major diagonal line?

An example would be a line from the right bottom front corner (B) of the can to the left top back corner (A) There are four of these lines inside the tin Disregard the thick-ness of the tin's sides, top, and bottom Your final mea-sure may be within a quarter inch of the actual length You could solve the problem by resorting to mathematical calculations, but there's an easier method that relies on straight measuring with the ruler only We want this method

We've excluded dimensions from the problem, since the solution is not dependent upon them Do you think that you can brew up a quick solution to this rich puzzle?

B

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Pictured above are the three prize winners in the Ladies International Cup held in Brooklyn, New York in the sum-mer of 1897 It began as a nine-horse race, but the num-ber 1 horse threw a shoe and never finished The remaining horses were numbered 2 through 9 An inter-esting fact concerning the race is that if you add together the numbers of the three winning steeds, the sum would

be the same as the total of the numbers on the five losing mounts

Of the three winners, the one with the lowest number finished first, the highest number finished third, and the second-place winner's number was one greater than the number of the winning horse Can you figure out the numbers of the three victorious thoroughbreds?

2 2

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For this problem you'll need four black and four white counters placed on your puzzle board as shown above What you're challenged to do is to make these eight pieces change place in exactly ten moves

The rules of play are simple Black moves down the board and white moves up All pieces must either move forward to an empty square or jump over one or two counters to get to an empty square You have ten minutes

to solve this one

2 3

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The following tale concerns the harrowing experience of Lonesome Leroy, a lighthouse keeper It seems that one night, while taking a bath, the water faucets broke and Leroy couldn't turn them off When the water started spill-ing over the rim of the tub, Leroy tried to leave the bath-room, but he found that the door was stuck and wouldn't open As the water flooded the room and rose up to his chin, Leroy looked for a way to escape The room was solid stone and had no windows or other means of escape It was at this moment that Leroy thought of a solution that would save him from drowning Do you know what he did?

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Professor Willard Wordsworth, a resident of Ma comb's boardinghouse, has made these observations about the gas-fired Victorian tub in the second-floor bath-room: You can fill the tub from the cold water tap in 6 minutes and 40 seconds, while it takes exactly 8 minutes

Bas-to fill it from the hot water tap Furthermore, after the tub

is full, if you pull out the stopper, it takes the water actly 13 minutes and 20 seconds to run out

ex-Now comes Willard's puzzle If you leave the stopper out and open both the hot and cold water taps all the way, how long will it take to fill the tub? Don't get all wet trying

to solve this one

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Calvin Collectable has selected the above twelve items from his antique shop for you to use in our next puzzle Calvin challenges you to arrange these items into six rows with each row containing four items Some items can, of course, appear in more than one row

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"Touching" Puzzle

You may think that you'll have to resort to some magical solution to solve this problem after you've worked at it for awhile Place the five magician's palming coins here so that each coin will be touching every other coin If you're out of palming coins, you may use quarters or half-dollars Our Baffling Bunny thinks that ten minutes is tops for finding the answer to this problem

2 7

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"Telephone Pole" Puzzle

Squire Bishop, an avid puzzler from way back, has been challenged by the local telephone company to a battle of wits The linemen laid out 16 telephone poles on the grounds of his estate in the form of one small square in the middle of a larger square The problem is to move four

of the poles to new positions so that three squares will be formed The squire is obviously up in the air over this one

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Oh well, you can't blame Angus for trying However, he's faced with a problem How much corn must he bring to the mill so that after giving Ian his ten percent he will come away with exactly 100 pounds of cornmeal? Assume there will be no waste during the milling

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"What do you say, Ian, will you mill my corn for

one-twentieth oj the amount of corn I bring you?"

"Are you daft, Angus? You know full well that my price is one-tenth of the corn brought to my mill!"

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