MYTHEMATICAL GAMES

GREEK PHILOSOPHERS AND MISSING NUMBERS SUPPLY THE FORMULA FOR FUN

Mathematical games are something like the story problems you struggled with in
school. The difference is that you can throw them in the garbage anytime
without flunking algebra.

Math teasers break down into two categories: those that cannot be solved, and
those that can be solved, but not by you. Although hundreds of years old,
mathematical games are unique in that Aristotle did not invent them. He was,
however, the first scholar to list the answers upside down on the problems page.

Here are several problems selected from an upcoming anthology of brainteasers,
Mathematical Games That Could Not Be Solved by People Who Claim They Have High
IQs!

1. If John has three apples and Mary has two plums, what country is this?

2. Mr. Cook, Mr. Baker, Mr. Sailor, Mr. Refrigerator Repairman, and Mr. Nuclear
Power Plant Community Information Officer were in a boat fishing one day when
Mr. Cook noted that each of their names described the occupation of one of those
present.

"That's quite interesting," offered Mr. Sailor, who preferred to be called Oscar
Bateman. "Gimme 'nother beer."

The man who called himself Mr. Refrigerator Repairman chimed in, "We gonna fish
or talk?"

"Say, fellas, what do you say we just pack it in and go bowling?" Mr. Nuclear
Power Plant Community Information Officer said nervously. He knew that less
than two miles upstream his employer was dumping deadly plutonium waste in the
water, creating a new breed of fish that lived on boat hulls and human blood.

Mr. Baker muttered under his breath. He hated his companions and had agreed to
the fishing expedition only because his wife had found out about the Darcy twins
and the photographs and she was threatening to sing to the police unless he
forked over 80 percent of the profits and put the house in her name.

Which man is whom, who does what, where does he do it, and who cares? The really
important questions are, Who are the Darcy twins, where are those photographs,
and why should Mrs. Baker get most of the profits?

3. Achilles, the fleet-footed Greek hero, was bragging to friends about his
remarkable athletic prowess when Aristotle, overhearing, challenged him to run a
footrace with a tortoise. The tortoise would start the race at a point half the
distance to the finish line. By the time Achilles reached that point the
tortoise would have covered another half distance to the finish. And so it
would go, Aristotle smirked, with Achilles forever closing on the tortoise but
never catching it.

Achilles thought long and hard, then asked the philosopher, "Uh, what if I stabs
it?"

"What?" asked Aristotle.

"What if I stab the turtle?"

"You can't just stab it!"

"I got a sharp spear. Cuts through turtle shell easy," the hero said. "Whaddaya
say?"

"It's a tortoise, nectar head!"

Although the rest of this story is lost, mathematicians have long wondered, How
could two such remarkable men have conversed so casually when one died more than
600 years before the other was born?

4. Numbers have always played an important part in mathematics. Without them
such fields as geometry never would have progressed beyond "Fun With Squares."
Yet it's long been known that besides zero through nine there exists an extra
digit wedged somewhere between six and seven. Mathematicians have avoided using
the mystery number because it is tricky to spell and has an embarrassing shape.
The lack of that number has caused quite a few anomalies in physics. For
instance, the mystery number can be used to prove that the sun is only about 150
yards from the earth and is the size of a Frisbee. Use the mystery number to
recalculate some " old wives"' equations to prove that:

a. When you're traveling by car, the close-up scenery really does pass by faster
than the faraway scenery.

b. It's now 1847 and whipped cream cheese is not feasible.