Puzzles, Jokes, Anecdotes, and Thoughts

I just drew, and mine was long. :mrgreen:

 

There were 4 straws. Apparently yours was the longest. I drew one that was in between the length of your straw and Eddy's straw, leaving a straw half the size of Eddy's.

That leaves Rainer with the last (and shortest) straw. :wink:

So Rainer, are you up for it :?:

Riley

 

You can not be serious. There seems to have been some cheating going on here. How can we trust your assertion that the 4th straw is shorter than the others, when it hasn't even been drawn yet? And if we could, then now that you've revealed the fact that the undrawn straw is the shortest, no-one with any sense is going to draw it. It seems to me, therefore, that the shortest straw actually drawn is Eddy's!

 

:x :x ARGGH, Rainer! I was hoping you would be jumping for opportunity to set this record. Unless Eddy desires to,

I heretofore declare the goal to set the record for most piano keys hit in a minute, null.

ps. If you have a piano handy, play this riff for sport:

 

...So that's what it's called :lol: :lol:

by coincidence, I actually got a haircut today.

 

Once upon a time there was a man so charming that all the ladies fell in love with him. His wife was extremely jealous. Her

jealousy once reached such a pitch that she prayed to God that he lose all his charm. Her prayer was answered. As a result,

none of the ladies ever loved him again--including his wife.

 

Here is a little puzzle for you to enjoy solving.

About a year ago I bought some music which came from a Catalan publisher called "La ma de Guido".
It struck me that "Guido's mother" was a pretty odd name for a publisher, but then I thought no more about it.
Some time later I became aware of my mistake, but that made matters worse; I was even less able to make the connection because, ill-educated buffoon that I am, I lacked a key piece of knowledge.
By chance I stumbled upon it yesterday, and now it all makes sense.

(a) Who is Guido?
(b) How is his mother relevant?
(c) What was my mistake?
(d) What piece of knowledge did I lack?
(e) How does it all make sense?

 

Very good, Monica, top marks!

More specifically:

(c) My mistake was to assume, by analogy with Spanish "madre", that Catalan "mà" meant "mother".
In due course I smelled a rat when I saw that little logo on the front cover which looked like a dirty glove.
That made me doubt my assumption and had me going to the dictionary to look up "mà", and sure enough it means "hand".

(d) I had indeed never heard of the Guido's Hand, a gap in my musical education. I offer the fact that I don't sing as a feeble excuse.

(e) Because of the significance of Guido's Hand to the world of music, and indeed because of Arezzo's contribution to the development of music notation, it makes sense for the hand to be adopted as mascot, logo, and even label for a music publisher.

Glad you liked it.

 

Just heard a very cute puzzle: Three logicians were at a bar. The bartender asked them: " Do all of you want beer? " One of them said " I don't know". The second one said : " I don't know".

The third one then said YES. How did he know that the other two wanted beer?

 

That's easy. Being logicians they would take the question "do you ALL want beer" literally, not pertaining to themselves alone. So if the first two had not wanted beer, they both would have answered NO.

 

I agree with Chris

In Sentential Logic (smart, aren't I? 8) ) It's a Modus Tollens argument. If P then Q; not Q; therefore not P.

Q is the idea that they don't want beer

P is them having said "No," I don't want beer."

Condition P isn't true so Condition Q can't be the corollary.

So they would have to say no. But they couldn't have known until all three of them answered and nobody objected as the third person said "YES!"

Got it right, no?!

 

It boils down to simple Boolean logic, with particular reference to deMorgan's laws.

Bearing in mind that, as Chris rightly points out, each logician's answer doesn't state whether he wants beer, but whether they all do, the circumstances in which he can give each of the 3 possible answers are as follows:
"Yes": When and only when he wants beer AND knows that both others do too.
"No": When and only when he does not want beer OR knows that at least one of the others doesn't.
"I don't know": In all other circumstances.

This third answer therefore indicates (NOT "yes") AND (NOT "no"). Applying the circumstances under which "yes" and "no" may be given, this means:

(NOT(he wants beer AND he knows both others want beer)) AND (NOT(he does not want beer OR he knows at least one of the others wants no beer)).

DeMorgan's rules are that NOT(A AND B) is equivalent to ((NOT A) OR (NOT B))
and that NOT(A OR B) is equivalent to ((NOT A) AND (NOT B)).
Applying these to the above, we get:

(he does not want beer OR he doesn't know both others want beer) AND (he does want beer AND he doesn't know that at least one of the others wants no beer).

In turn, this is equivalent to:

(he doesn't know the others both want beer) AND (he wants beer) AND (he doesn't know at least one of the others doesn't want beer).

For a logician to answer "I don't know", all three parts of this proposition must be true, in particular the middle one. His "I don't know" answer therefore tells us (or at least the other logicians) that he wants beer.

The second logician now knows the first one wants beer, but doesn't know what the third one wants. Again, his "I don't know" answer indicates that he does want beer.

The third logician now knows that both the others want beer.

 

Stop it ! The horse is dead already

 

Very good, Chris and the rest! Now try this one: Arthur is looking at Betty, Betty is looking at Charles. Arthur is married: Charles is not.

Can it be deduced whether one of the three is married and looking at an unmarried one?