#139 BLOXO cubes
Chloe and Clive are hard at work packing BLOXO kids鈥� blocks in the warehouse. There are two kinds of block: yellows, which are a set of four cubes stuck together to form a 2脳2 square, and blues, which come as single cubes.
With a pile of blocks in front of them and a box to fit them in, Clive became despondent. 鈥淭his box is big enough to fit 27 cubes in a 3脳3脳3 arrangement and we need to fit in six yellows and three blues, which does add up to 27 cubes. But I鈥檓 not sure they鈥檙e going to fit 鈥� some of these awkward yellows are going to stick out the top.鈥�
鈥淚鈥檓 sure we can work out a way to arrange them so they all go in the box,鈥� exclaims Chloe.
鈥淲ell, I鈥檓 fairly confident they won鈥檛 fit,鈥� replies Clive.
Who is right? Can you prove it? (Playing with some toy bricks might help.)
#138 Ice cream coincidence
Solution
Mr Slippy is right. As far as the digital display on the drivers鈥� thermometers is concerned, it is possible that they clicked over at exactly the same time and never showed the same temperature. However, the actual temperature must have been the same at some point as temperature changes continuously. The graph of Van A鈥檚 temperature always remained in a band between -13掳C and -18掳C, but the graph of Van B鈥檚 temperature went outside that range and thus must have crossed over Van A鈥檚 line somewhere as it went from -12掳C to -20掳C.
Quick quiz #127
1 What was the first spacecraft to reach interstellar space?
2 Which term applies to larvae that look like caterpillars: scarabaeiform, eruciform or vermiform?
3 What was the earliest known Meso-American civilisation?
4 The term 鈥渞obot鈥� was first applied to an automaton in a play by which writer?
5 Borrelia bacteria cause which vector-borne disease?
Quick quiz #127
Answers
1 Voyager 1
2 Eruciform
3 The Olmecs
4 Karel 膶apek, in his play R. U. R.
5 Lyme disease
- Solution next week