Thursday, October 25, 2012

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 21, 2012): World Series of Letters

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 21, 2012): World Series of Letters:
Q: What letter comes next in this series: W, L, C, N, I, T?
I know I've seen this somewhere before.

Edit: The series refers to itself... and the image with the alphabet looping back on itself was to imply this. The comment also should lead you to looking at the question itself.
A: S is the next letter in the series which consists of the initial letters of the original question (What, Letter, Comes, Next, In, This, Series)

Thursday, October 18, 2012

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 14, 2012): Word Properties

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 14, 2012): Word Properties:
Q: What specific and very unusual property do these five words have in common: school, half, cupboard, Wednesday and friend? Identify the property and name a sixth word that shares the property. Any word having this property will be counted correct.
While I usually have these right away, I had to think a couple times before I got the specific property.

Edit: It was pretty easy to notice that there were silent letters in each of the words... but the specific property is that the silent letter is in the third position in the word. I mentioned that I had to think a couple times before getting this property (e.g. third try). Additionally the picture I chose was of planet Earth which is the third planet from the sun.
A: In all the words, the third letter is silent. Some examples are JEoPARDY, DEbT, SIgN and WAtCH

Thursday, October 11, 2012

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 7, 2012): Hexagon Diagonals - Count the Triangles

Hexagon Diagonals (less one)NPR Sunday Puzzle (Oct 7, 2012): Hexagon Diagonals - Count the Triangles:

Q: Draw a regular hexagon, and connect every pair of vertices except one. The pair you don't connect are not on opposite sides of the hexagon, but along a shorter diagonal. How many triangles of any size are in this figure?
The diagram in the upper right should help. I've removed one diagonal. It looks like a cool cube, don't you think?

Edit: The words "cool cube" were a double hint. First, the diagram I drew reminded me of the isometric cubes in the Q*Bert video game which was released in 1982. Additionally, if you cube the answer (82^3) you get 551368. I think the result is cool because 55+13=68. As a final clue, in several of my comments, I used the word "lead" which happens to be 82 on the Periodic Table of Elements.
A: 82 Triangles - be sure to watch the video for an explanation of the answer.