The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-03-27
PUZZLES THAT LOOK EASY
Prove Insurmouutabe Stumbling Blocks to Clever Brain

~ cry simple questions, provided they
" be turned in a sufficiently, artful
manner may prove insurmounta-
bic stumbling blocks TO the cleverest
brains. Who, for instance, has not
heard how King James I puzzled all
the leading wits of the age by pro-
pounding to them the following; my
is il that. when a fish is introduced into
a bucket of water, already full TO the
brirn, the water does not overflow
All sorts of theories, some OF them
very ingenious, were put forward %
account for such an extraordinary phe-
nomenon The true solution of the
problem. il need hardly be said, is very
much simpler than any Of those found
by the wise men of the seventeenth
century, on whom King James, with the
gawky humCT of his nation. had stolen
march, by, as the logicianS would say,
begging the question-assun1ing as fact
something which is not true. The water
in the bucket does overflow, as any
body who makes the experiment VIII
soon discover for himself. Numerous
other instances of the same kind of
trick question might be given, TO which
the correct answer is simply Not
true
other questions of a slightly different
nature, but equally simple. have been
known to completely nonDlus persons
for whom. on all ordinary occasions IN
life. the qualifying term stupid would
be SinguiaT1y inappropriate How many
of your clever friends. may l ask, will
readily give a correct answer to the
following queStiOn-asSum OF
course, that they have not heard it. or
something like it before If boy
weighs fifty pounds and half his own
weight. what is the boys weight"
fS
yet II is surprising what number OF
people Will glibly reply seventy-hve
pounds. Here are others that may be
new to some of our readers:
Every day yard is cut from roll
of silk twenty yards in length. In how
many days will it be entirely cut up
into lengths2"
"A man climbing a greasy pole TWEEN
ty feet high mounts two feet every
minute. and then rests for minute,
during which he slips back three-quar-
ters of the distance he has gained. How
long at this rate would he take to reach
the tOD?"
Need the reader be told that the an
swer to the first question is not twenty,
but nineteen. and to the second not
forty but thirty-seven? The man as
cending the pole gains half a foot every
two minutes. In thirty-siX minutes he
is. therefore, within two feet Of the
minute he reaches the top and remains
there.
Here is another question involving
an elementary acquaintance with ge-
Omerty:
My room had only one small win
dow a foot high and a foot broad,
which admitted very little light. A
clever friend showed me how / might
enlarge il to twice its size without
making it either higher or broader.
How was il dOne?'
The original window was diamond
shaped. BY making il a square window
I increased neither les length nor its
breadth. and yet it was exactly twice
its former size.
To find the correct answers to the
foregoing questions the only thing nee
essary is a certain amount of reflection
but there are others which cannot be
disposed of so easily-which, indeed
leave the door open for controversy. OF
these the following is a typical speci-
men:
Suppose "A man walking round d
pole on the top Of which a monkey is
seated. AS the man moves the monkey
turns round on it's perch and faces hin
all the time. When the man hag com
pIeted his round of the pole has ht
gone round the monkey or not-'
To most persons il would I s-tainly
appear that the man has gone
round the monkey. but whoever is in
terested in such discussions wifi find NJ
lack of learned authorities to prove tina
the man. in going round the pole, hai
necessarily gone round the monkey
also.
How would you demonstrate that {