columbus area mensa, col-m, puzzles, 2002 april

Puzzles
—
by Dick Nuenke

Check out Quest for more brain exercising.

The first March cryptogram was:

BORN IN A LOG CABIN, AMBROSE BIERCE DEFIED ALGER'S LAW AND DID NOT BECOME PRESIDENT. — CLIFTON FADIMAN

Fadiman (1904-1999) was a writer and critic of great intellect. He may be remembered as the moderator of the hit radio show Information Please from 1938 to 1953.

The second cryptogram was:

NEGLIGENCE: ABSENTMINDEDLY ANSWERING THE DOOR IN YOUR NIGHTIE

Correct answers to both came from Delmar Burkitt, Andrzej Derdzinski, Jeff Lamb, Alma Litten, Julia Minturn, Carla Nuenke, Kevin Skehan, Bill Tippery, Jeff Wolfe, and Sally Yocom. John Jackson and Bob Kaplan also did the first cryptogram.

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The third was the tennis puzzle and although six answers were received, only Andrzej, Bob, and Jeff Wolfe had the answer correct. Most others missed the requirement for having the smallest number of games "compatible with the other information given", which turned out to be 19 games. The correct scores were 6-4, 1-6, 0-6, 6-1, and 6-2. Andrzej presented a mathematical approach which also permitted determining the minimum number of games.

This is the first of two cryptograms. Each letter stands for a different letter in the decoded message. Should be an easy one.

L G L J L P R L M L C Q E L M ' C B L Z R. L G L O N Z ' M L C Q E L M ' C Q G Q P R.

— D Q X J N D L I Q C C N

The second cryptogram is quite a bit harder.

R E I X D T J N J R V J K H P R J A E K J Y E P J C N E K I C X Y Z H B Y Z E N X Y V.
— Q E D Y E N C Z E

This puzzle is by Susan Denham from the column Enigma in the New Scientist by permission. It's another of those letters-for-digits puzzles, where each digit is consistently replaced by a letter, different letters being used for different digits.

I can tell you that NINE is divisible by 9.
EIGHT is a perfect cube, and
PRIME is a prime number.

Playing about with prime numbers can take ages, but with the aid of a calculator and efficient thinking you can within ten minutes tell me what TEN is.

You can do this the hard way, or do it the easy way. It's your choice. (Puzzle source next month.)

A locomotive left Chicago heading toward Columbus. It was 9:00 p.m. The train crept along through a dense fog at 30 miles per hour. A second locomotive left Columbus heading for Chicago, also going 30 mph, and on the same track! The distance between the two cities is 350 miles. At the moment the train left Chicago, a bumblebee sitting on its engine's windshield flew toward the Columbus train at 40 miles per hour. When it reached the Columbus train, it instantly headed back toward the Chicago train (still at 40 mph) and repeated the process of reversal until the trains collided.

How far did the bee travel, and (optional) what was going through the bee's mind just before it got squished?

Correct answers and puzzle solvers will appear next month. Send answers by April 17th to Dick Nuenke; 1460 Kingsgate Rd.; Columbus, OH 43221 or call in (recording 24 hours) to 614-326-0452; fax to 614-292-4118; or e-mail to rnuenke@columbus.rr.com.