#74 The twisted wood
On my way through the twisted wood, I bumped into Tweddle and Twaddle. These two are logical, but like to quarrel. When I found them, they were arguing over which of the 12 philosophers living in those parts was the greatest. Was it:
Spotton, Tuorlo or Twee?
Fluffer, Wimby or Mee?
Twitton, Twottie or Hirst?
Schnitzel, Freddie or Wurst?
Clearly, the correct answer had to be one of those 12, so I picked one of the names at random. I whispered the first letter of my nominee in Tweddle鈥檚 ear and the final letter in Twaddle鈥檚 ear. They then made the following remarks:
Tweddle: I don鈥檛 know your choice.
Twaddle: I don鈥檛 know it either.
Tweddle: I still don鈥檛 know.
Twaddle: Aha, but now I know it!
Which of the 12 did I chose?
Answer next week
#73 Changing guard
Solution
Perkins will end up facing right, regardless of where the other left-turners were standing. The five soldiers who are initially facing left will 鈥渢ransfer鈥� that leftness to a soldier to their left until there are no more right-facers to transfer this to. The soldiers will end up arranged like this:
L L L L L R R R R R R R R R R
Perkins is eighth from the left, so he will end up facing right.
Quick quiz #66
1 All maps need only four colours to make sure that no adjacent regions are coloured the same. True or false?
2 What did the Canadian company D-Wave Systems claim to have invented the first commercial example of in 2011?
3 Where are the Lomonosov ridge, the Mendeleev rise and the Podvodnikov basin?
4 鈥淚鈥檓 sorry, Dave, I鈥檓 afraid I can鈥檛 do that鈥� is an infamous quote from which movie villain?
5 What type of insect is Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson most famous for studying?
Answers
1 True, although a 1976 proof of the 鈥渇our colour theorem鈥� has only more recently become widely accepted by mathematicians
2 A quantum computer
3 On the floor of the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia; they are central to Russian claims of how far north its jurisdiction extends
4 The insurgent computer HAL 9000 in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey
5 Ants, especially social ones