An interesting thing happened yesterday in a game between my son and my father: a double check, in which the moved piece was not one of the checking pieces. (In a usual double check, a piece moves, placing the king in check but also discovering a check by another piece. To quote a formulation on […]
Archive | Puzzles
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, David
Usually the words used to represent letters are “alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, …” but in one instance (that I know of) it’s “alpha, bravo, charlie, david, ….” What is it, and why?
Earwigging
Several related Mississippi legal rules prohibit “earwigging.” Without looking it up, can you tell what it means? Note that no other states even mention “earwig” or its forms in their statutes, even though there’s nothing Mississippi-specific about that behavior. Also, only six cases accessible in Westlaw mention the term (setting aside those mentioning either insects […]
Etymological Oxymorons
“Splitting the atom,” it turns out, is what one might call an etymological oxymoron — “atom” comes from the Greek “a-,” meaning “not,” and “tomos,” meaning cut. The atom was that which couldn’t be split, at least through chemical processes, but it turns out that it can be split through nuclear processes (whether generated by […]
Math Puzzle
Consider the product 1! x 2! x 3! x … x 99! x 100! — a very big number, but that doesn’t faze us mathematicians (since you won’t need to multiply out in any event). The puzzle: Can you, by omitting exactly one of the factorials from the product, produce a perfect square? (For instance, […]
Heads of Executive Departments (E.g., Treasury, State, Etc.)
The heads of executive departments have many powers and many duties. But what are the powers and duties that the Constitution expressly assigns to them?
China
China is a country. China is a kind of dish. According to dictionary.com, “china” is also “a playing marble of china, or sometimes of porcelain or glass.” But it turns out that, in some states, a term pronounced — but not spelled — “china” is a bit of legalese. What does it mean?
Puzzle
You and I have 12 pennies, arranged in a row, heads up. We take turns. On each turn, the player can flip either (A) one coin or (B) two coins that are adjacent to each other. The player can choose on his turn which of these do, and which coin or coins to flip. Once […]
Reporter Series
Lawyers know that the Federal Reporter, which started out just as “F.,” is now on “F.3d.” The Northeastern Reporter is “N.E.3d.” Which reporters have a series number that’s higher than 3d?
10,640
This number can be seen, if you’re imaginative, as representing a particular online work (or set of works, if you prefer to view it that way). Which one? [UPDATE: Please explain your answer.]
Fun Math Puzzle
Pretty easy, but I found it amusing. Treating “^” as meaning exponentiation, and treating the exponentiation chain as going on infinitely, solve for x: x^(x^(x^(x^(x^(x^…))))) = 2
Astronomical Vegetable
What vegetable’s name is etymologically connected — distantly, to be sure — to an astronomical concept (not just the name of a particular object, such as the name of a planet or a star)? There might well be many answers, but I have one in mind.
Cryptarithms
Cool math puzzles, which I remember from my childhood (though the ones I did were in Russian). The principle is that you must solve a puzzle such as OLD+OLD+OLD = GOOD or COUPLE+COUPLE = QUARTET, where each letter stands for a digit and no two letters standing for the same digit. A fun project for […]
Puzzle
Here’s an easy one: White Russia, Yellow China, Black Turkey, Red ___.
Math Puzzle
My friend Haym Hirsh passes along this problem: Prove that every positive integer has a multiple (other than 0) that consists only of zeros and ones. (Thus, for instance, one such multiple for 6 is 1110.)