Two In Once

Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side of roads in Sweden

E4
Consider the following words arranged alphabetically for absolutely no reason: BUCKLE, CLIP, COOL, CUT, DUST, FAST, FIX, LEFT, PRESENTLY, ?REFRAIN, RIOT, ROOT, SCAN, SKIN. What do you think they have in common? The trick is, if you get one, you get all! Otherwise, unfortunately, you can bang any number of heads against all the dictionaries in the world and still come up diddly squat. So here's a hint:
Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side of roads in Sweden. The conversion to right-hand was done on a weekday at 5pm. All traffic stopped as people switched sides. This particular time and day were deliberately chosen to prevent accidents, as drivers in the morning would have just woken up and been too sleepy to realise that that was the day of the changeover.
Of course, it's an unfair clue but you learnt something, didn't you? Incidentally, RAVEL and REPLACE are two more examples.
DEAR MS
(An old one was: "Why does a strong magnet placed close to a carpenter's bubble-level - the device with which they check if things are level - make the bub-?ble move towards it?" - MS)

Mini-MagLev Dept:

Alcohol, spirit and water are diamagnetic substances that are repelled by magnetic fields. There-fore, when a strong magnet is placed near the bubble-level, the liquid is pushed away from the magnet, causing the bubble to move towards the magnet.
- Balagopalan Nair K, ?balagopalannair@gmail.com
(The other problem concerned a catastrophe in some country that killed a lot of people and called for a major change in regulations that were effected to ensure that all public buildings eliminated this one detail which proved to be so deadly. - MS)

Under-Fire Dept:

We are talking about the Boston nightclub called the Cocoanut Grove which caught fire in 1942; killing nearly 500 people. In the mad rush to escape, people were crushed against the doors. The tragedy was caused by the simple flaw in the doors, which opened inwards, and people could not pull them open in the rush. Afterwards, all buildings had to have doors that opened outwards.
- Saifuddin S F Khomosi,
saif_sfk@hotmail.com
 
(The third problem was: "Why does the flame of a candle always point in an upward direction no matter how the candle itself is oriented?" - MS)

We-Have-Ignition Dept:

The flame of a candle always points in an upward direction because hot air surrounds it. Hot air, being lighter than cold air, always rises up and takes the flame along with it. And since it's a flame, it produces hot air endlessly. Because of this, the candle flame points upward, no matter which dir-ection the candle points at.
- Vishesh Vigh, vigh.vishesh@gmail.com
When the wick of the candle is burnt, the heat energy released heats up the surround-ing air. This hot air rises up and the surrounding cold air rushes down, taking its place and in turn accelerating the hot air upwards. The upward move-ment of the hot air causes the flame to shoot up, no matter what position it is in.
- Sonali Chawla,?sonalidchawla@gmail.com
ENDGAME(S)

1. 12 + 1 = 11 + 2. Correct, right? Now convert those numbers and the addition signs into words and you get something much more fantastic. Any ideas what?
2. A factory making tables and chairs has 10 saws, six lathes and 18 sanding machines. It takes a chair 10 minutes on a saw, five minutes on a lathe and five minutes of sanding to be ?completed, while it takes a table five minutes on a saw, five minutes on a lathe and 20 minutes of sanding. A chair sells for $10 and a table for $20. How many of both should the factory produce per hour to yield the highest revenue, and what is that revenue?

(To get in touch with Mukul, ?mail him at mukul.?mindsport@gmail.com)

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