Sands of Time

E4

DEAR MS

(The problem was: “American coin denominations go like this: 1 cent, 5 cents, 10 cents, 25 cents, 50 cents and one dollar. Now a box contains two coins that total 55 cents. One of the coins is not a 5-cent coin. What are the coins?” — MS)

Cent-Per-Cent-Solution-Dept:

The two coins are 50 cent and 5 cent… and “one” of the coins is still not a 5-cent coin!

• Yakub Lokhandwala, ylokhandwala@gmail.com

(The other problem was: “If only one of two identical bars of metal is a magnet and there’s no other metal around to attract, how do you find out which bar is the magnet? — MS)

Poles-Apart-Dept:

I guess I’ve come up with the high-school answer. Break each of the metal bars in half. The two magnet halves will attract or repel each other; while the two non-magnetic halves won’t. — Saifuddin Khomosi, saif_sfk@hotmail.com (Yes, but like I said, SK, that may be correct but it’s also B for boring — MS)

Suspend the metal pieces with lengths of hair from the head. The one which consistently lies parallel to a certain axis would be the magnet since it is pointing north-south.

• Supriya Nair, supriya.nr1@gmail.com

Since you did not put any time limit on how long a person has before he can tell which is which, I would advise you to try magneto-therapy with each of them in turn. The one that works wonders is your magnet! — Altaf Ahmed, ctrlaltaf@yahoo.in

(The third problem was to figure out which of six given statements was the only true one. — MS)

No-False-Alarms-Dept:

The correct option is (e) “Five of these statements are false”. Obviously if one of the statements is true, then five out of the six should be false! — A K Bhat, docakbhat@gmail.com (Yes, Sheikh Sintha Mathar, sheikhsm7@gmail.com and Amatul Nadia, amatul.nadia@gmail.com, you also got it right — MS)

Enlightened-Lake-Dept:

It suddenly struck me that getting off the frozen lake is like a spiritual journey. Here, by throwing away all the material belongings I can get to the shore, and there, by throwing away all attributes and thought (or, ego) one can land on the other shore! — Nalanda Chakraborty, nalanda_c@yahoo.com

ENDGAME(S)

1. If it is zero degrees outside today and it’s supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold it is going to be? — Seshagiri Row Karry, srkarry@yahoo.com

2. What comes next in the sequence: 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, ? — Shashi Shekher Thakur, shashishekher@yahoo.com

(Email Mukul at mukul.mindsport@gmail.com)