X = Y in a Z (Part 1)

There have been a few of these types of puzzles on The Puzzle Page in the past, including: 12 I in a F, 12 N on the F of a C, and 3 F in a Y.  Here are a few more of the same type.

1. 9 P in the S S.
2. 1760 Y in a M.
3. 640 A in a S M.
4. 6.0221415×10²³ A in a M.
5. 52 C in a D of P C.
6. 206 B in the H B.

Five Brothers

Richard's father has five sons; four are named Alan, Elan, Ilan, and Olan. What is the name of the fifth son?

Find the Furniture

There are five pieces of furniture hidden in the grid below. Link the letters of each piece with horizontal, vertical, or diagonal lines. All 25 letters must be used, no letter may be used more than once, and no line may cross another.

L  E  A  R  D
B  C  H  I  R
A  C  U  B  A
T  B  P  O  O
E  D  S  F  A

There Once Was a Woman and She...

This riddle comes from Martin Gardner's book Aha! Gotcha.


Say the following couplet so that it rhymes:

     "There once was a woman and she
     was deaf as a post."



If you'd like to see more puzzles from Martin Gardner be sure to check out the following books:

Dropdown Puzzle 2

You can find the first Dropdown puzzle here.  Fill the empty squares in the bottom half using the letters in the respective columns in the top half to see a quote.  This type of crossword puzzle is also called a Quotefall, Dropline, or 'Fit the Quote' puzzle.

For a whole book filled with similar puzzles check out:  Quotefalls Volume 32, Selected Puzzles

Dropdown Puzzle

These puzzles are sometimes called droplines or quotefalls. Fill in the squares with the letters found in the column in the top part of the diagram. When correctly filled out you will see a quote.

Click on the picture for a larger view.

Still the same...

A reader asked the following puzzle:

"I have five letters. If you take the first and the last I will still be the same. Even if you take the middle letter I will be the same as before. What am I?"


Can you guess the correct answer?

A Fruity Problem

Professor Egghead's nephew spent a summer working as a stockboy for a large grocery store. It was a rather unusual grocery store, however, and they had a very strange way of arranging the fruit in the fresh produce area.

In one group you would find any of the following fruits:
apple, banana, grape, and orange.

In a different area you would find fruits like:
mango, nectarine, peach, and pear.

One day a new crate of fruit arrived and the young man wasn't sure where to put it. Where would you put a crate labeled strawberry?

How Old Are They Now?

This puzzle is meant for all the people who had trouble with age problems during high school algebra. In fact it might finish age problems all together. The next time you are asked to solve a problem about Dick being four times older than Fred was last Thursday, etc., pull this one out of your pocket.

I'm not even sure if this one has a real solution or if it's only meant as a joke, but either way it will keep you busy (and baffled!) for a very long time.

Ten years from now Tim will be twice as old as Jane was when Mary was nine times as old as Tim. Eight years ago, Mary was half as old as Jane will be when Jane is one year older than Tim will be at the time when Mary will be five times as old as Tim will be two years from now. When Tim was one year old, Mary was three years older than Tim will be when Jane is three time as old as Mary was six years before the time when Jane was half as old as Tim will be when Mary will be ten years older than Mary was when Jane was one-third as old as Tim will be when Mary will be three times as old as she was when Jane was born.

How old are they now?

12 I in a F

Another reader of this page asks:

"I've been given a puzzle where I have to find words that fit in place of the single capital letters in this sentence:


There are 12 I in a F.

The single letters are to be replaced with words that start with the provided letter."


I'm sure most of you can figure it out soon enough--hopefully the reader who asked the question won't stub their toe in their haste to solve this little stumper.

4 + 5 = 10?

In the figure below are four straight lines. Can you add five straight lines to the figure to end up with ten?

12 N on the F of a C

A reader of this page asks:

"I've been given a puzzle where I have to find words that fit in place of the single capital letters in this sentence:

There are 12 N on the F of a C.

The single letters are to be replaced with words that start with the provided letter."


I'm sure most of you can figure it out quite quickly. As for the reader who asked, if you try timing how long it takes to figure it out, I'm sure you'll figure it out a bit more quickly.

Longest Word with only One Vowel

A reader of this site wonders:

"Is there an 8 letter word with 1 vowel in the fourth position?"

In the English language, there is such a word, but it's not the longest word in the language with only one vowel. There is a nine letter word with only one vowel. To be fair, though, the eight letter word is a root of the nine letter word.

Feel free to venture your best guess in the comment section below.

Synograms

A synogram is a pair of words which are synonyms with the added rule that they are also anagrams (plus or minus one letter.)

For instance, 'bush' and 'shrub' are synonyms with only the letter 'R' added to 'bush' to make it an anagram of 'shrub'. Another synogram pair is 'ludicrous' and 'ridiculous'.

What other synograms can you find?

Had Had Had

Insert puctuation into the following sentence so that it makes sense:

"James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher."

Shingles and Apples

There is an old story of a trader who put into Philadelphia with a boat load of shingles, some of which had been damaged in passage. He was asked by a Quaker merchant what the price was for the shingles.

"They are $10 a bundle," he replied, "if you choose the the bundles and $5 a bundle if I choose them."

The merchant thought for a minute and said, "Captain, I will buy your whole cargo, and you may choose the bundles."


The following puzzle involves a similar principle:

A man had an apple stand and sold his larger apples at three for a dollar and his smaller apples at five for a dollar. When he had just thirty apples of each size left to sell, he asked his son to watch the stand while he had lunch. When he came back from lunch the apples were all gone and the son gave his father $15. The father questioned his son.

"You should have received $10 for the thirty large apples and $6 for the thirty small apples, making $16 dollars in all."

The son looked surprised. "I am sure I gave you all the money I received and I counted the change most carefully. It was difficult to manage without you here, and as there were an equal number of each sized apple left, I sold them all at the average price of four for $1. Four goes into sixty fifteen times so I am sure $15 is correct."

Where did the missing $1 go?