Scientia Online

Compiled by Santa Cross

Christmas season: Ah, season to take up a bum’s life – eat, sleep, watch TV, check FB notifications, eat, sleep,... and the cycle goes on again. Christmas season: Ah, a time to relax, to take things slow, to refrain from any cerebral activity... NOT!

1. A woman gives a beggar P 10. The woman is the beggar’s sister but the beggar is not the woman’s brother. Why?

2. There are three books on a shelf, volumes I, II, and III. Each book is 24 mm thick, comprising 2 cm thickness of pages, and 2 mm for each cover. A bookworm eats its way from page 1 of volume I to the last page of volume III. How far does it travel?

3. In a far off country, the coin of the realm is pure gold and weighs 100 grammes. The King has eight tax collectors who each collect different and unspecified amounts on behalf of their king. One of the collectors is a cheat. He files 10 grammes of gold off each of the coins he collects. This cannot be detected visually, but the king is aware that it is happening. One day, the king is visited by a foreign merchant, who offers him the use of his weighing machine. Unfortunately, the machine is the type which prints the weight on a ticket, and as the king has only one foreign coin with which to operate the machine, he is allowed only one weighing. How does he discover the identity of the cheat?

ANSWERS:

1. The beggar is the woman’s sister.

2. The answer is 28 mm. Page 1 of volume I is to the right as you look at it on the shelf, and therefore immediately faces the cover which adjoins volume II. Similarly, the last page of volume III is next to the cover which adjoins volume II.

3. The king stands the collectors in a line and take from each a number of coins which equal his number in the line, i.e., 1 coin from collector 1, 2 coins from collector 2, etc. He then weighs all these coins and checks how may multiples of ten the answer falls short of the expected total of 3600 grammes. The answer will tell him the position in the line of the cheat.