NPR Sunday Puzzle (Sep 2, 2012): Autumn Leaves

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Sep 2, 2012): Autumn Leaves:

Q: It's an anagram word ladder. For example, take the word "spring." If the last letter is changed to an "o" and the result is rearranged, you get "prison." Or, instead, if the last letter is changed to an "e" and the result rearranged, you get "sniper." Or change the last letter to an "a" and get "sprain," and so on. For this challenge, start with the word "autumn." Changing one letter at a time, and anagramming it each step of the way, turn "autumn" into "leaves." Each step has to be a common word. In how few steps can you do it?

I know Will frowns on capitalized or plural words, so I initially looked for an ideal answer without any plurals (except for leaves). As luck would have it, that forced me to use "vestal" or "teasel" which seemed worse than using plurals so I relaxed that restriction. There are multiple answers, but I believe only one acceptable length.

Edit: My clue was intended to hint (but not give away) that there is an ideal 5-step* answer. The word "luck" hinted at amulet being required in most of the common 5-step chains. *In my terminology a step is when you go from one word to the next.

A: The following chain is 5 steps and uses common words. Your answer may be different.
AUTUMN (remove N, add L)
MUTUAL (remove U, add E)
AMULET (remove M, add S)
SALUTE (remove T, add V)
VALUES (remove U, add E)
LEAVES

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Aug 26, 2012): Famous Classical Composer

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Aug 26, 2012): Famous Classical Composer:

Q: Take the name of a popular children's character in nine letters. Several of its letters appear more than once in the name. Remove every duplication of a letter, so every letter that remains appears just once. This new set of letters can be rearranged to name a famous classical composer. Who is it?

Wouldn't you like a hint?

Edit: "Wouldn't" sounds a little like "wooden"...

A: Pinocchio --> Chopin

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Aug 19, 2012): Sports Section II

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Aug 19, 2012): Sports Section II

Q: Name the winning play in a certain sport: two words, five letters in each word. These two words share exactly one letter. Drop this letter from both words. The remaining eight letters can be rearranged to name the person who makes this winning play. What person is it?

Queen to H4, Checkmate!
Edit: The hint was to Queen and their song "We are the Champions".

A: MATCH POINT --> CHAMPION

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Aug 12, 2012): Two Bugs Puzzle

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Aug 12, 2012): Two Bugs Puzzle:

Q: Name two insects. Read the names one after the other. Insert an H somewhere in this string of letters, and you'll complete a familiar word that is the opposite of what either of these insects is. What word is it?

Nixon in China?

Edit: If you check the Wikipedia page for Behemoth, there's mention of a reference to Behemoth in the musical, "Nixon in China".

A: BEE + MOTH + H --> BEHEMOTH

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Aug 5, 2012)

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Aug 5, 2012): The Cat is Away:

Since I'm not going to be around to comment on the puzzle, I'm putting this week's puzzle on "auto-pilot". Please play nicely and don't give the puzzle answer away.

Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any hints that could lead directly to the answer (e.g. via Google or Bing) before the deadline of Thursday at 3pm ET. If you know the answer, click the link and submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.

You may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't give the answer away. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the Thursday deadline. Thank you.

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jul 29, 2012): I'm In My Element

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jul 29, 2012): I'm In My Element:

Q: Think of the last name of a famous person in entertainment. The first two letters of this name are a symbol for one of the elements on the periodic table. Substitute the name of that element for the two letters, and you will describe the chief element of this person's work. What is it?

Aluminumanis?

Edit: Alanis Morrisette has a song entitled "Isn't it Ironic"

A: Tina FEY --> IRONY

GeekDad Puzzle of the Week: Contiguous Consonants

GeekDad Puzzle of the Week: Contiguous Consonants:

Q: [GeekDad had] a lot of time to work out several phrases that incorporated words with multiple adjacent non-vowels or "contiguous consonants." For purposes of this puzzle, please consider the letter "y" strictly as a consonant. In parentheses, after each phrase is the number of words, and each word's count of contiguous consonants.

• Ice-free, super tall buildings in Scranton (3w/6c)
• Encoding long words in a fixed orbit (3w/6c)
• Crazy fish-studier’s two wheeled transport (3w/5c)
• Melodic equivalents to the "Queen of Diamonds" (Condon)(3w/6c)
• Sufficiently valuable magic during the America’s Cup (3w/5c)
• Where playing Beethoven on your iPhone was invented (3w/5c)
• Artificial disk-flip game (2w/5c)
• Rotational energy "battery," 10^-10 meters across (2w/5c)

For those that have struggled with the math problems, this might be more up your alley. The hardest one, in my opinion, is the 4th one; I'm not completely happy with my answer. Which ones do you find tricky? Remember don't give anything away since this is a contest with a prize. Feel free to read the full puzzle details on the GeekDad site and submit your answers by Friday for a chance at the $50 prize.

Edit: The deadline has passed and I've posted our answers in the comments. I'm still waiting to see the intended answers, especially for #4.

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jul 22, 2012): Sports Section

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jul 22, 2012): Sports Section:

Q: Name a sport in two words — nine letters in the first word, six letters in the last — in which all six vowels (A, E, I, O, U, and Y) are used once each. What is it?

Grr!!! I spent a good amount of time trying to find a 9-5 answer before finding out that there was a mistake in the posted puzzle... I bet a few of you were similarly confused. I was working on "organized rugby" as a potential answer until I saw the correction.

Edit: The hints were "Grr" which are the starting consonants of the answer, "9-5" as in odds of 9 to 5, "posted" as in race results being posted and "bet" as what you might do at one of these races.

A: GREYHOUND RACING

GeekDad Puzzle of the Week: Dog Siblings

GeekDad Puzzle of the Week: Dog Siblings:

Q: A guy with a black lab said that his dog, Selkie, has five brothers and sisters in town. "But I’ve never run into one of them," he said. "I wonder what are the chances of that?"

Imagine that each of the six dogs goes out somewhere an average of once every three days. And imagine that between trails and parks and fields there are 200 places a dog can go, all (let's say...) with equal probability.

If it's been exactly two years — 730 days — since Selkie's owner picked her up from the litter, what are the chances that during this time Selkie would NOT see a doggie sibling?
For extra credit, what are the chances over the same time that any sibling will meet any other sibling?

I've got my answers which I will reveal after the deadline. In the meantime, feel free to solve it and submit your answer to GeekDad.

Edit:  The deadline was Friday, so here is how I went about solving the puzzle.

The key to this puzzle is figure out the chances of dogs not meeting on one day.  From there it is easy to figure out the chance of them not meeting for 730 days. And then if necessary, you can figure out the probability of the opposite case (meeting) by subtracting from 100%.

Part 1 - Selkie doesn't meet a doggie sibling

In order for a dog to be at a specific location, they must be out (with 1/3 probability) and at that specific spot (1/200 probability). That means there is a 1/600 chance of a specific dog being out at a specific location.  Thinking of the negative probability, that means there is a 599/600 chance that a dog is *not* at a specific location.

Selkie will *not* meet another dog on a specific day if,
1) Selkie is at home (2/3)
2) Selkie is out at any location (1/3) and dog 1 is not there (599/600) and dog 2 is not there (599/600) and dog 3 is not there...

In other words, the chance that Selkie doesn't meet any other dog on a specific day is:
2/3 + 1/3 x (599/600)^5 ≈ 99.7231466062%

And the chance that Selkie doesn't meet any dogs for 2 years (730 days) is:
[ 2/3 + 1/3 x (599/600)^5 ]^730 ≈ 13.2148023616%

A: (Part 1) The chance that Selkie does NOT see a doggie sibling is around 13.2148%

Part 2 - Chances that any sibling meets another sibling

This is the much tougher question.  First let's make a table of probabilities of having 0 dogs out, 1 dog out, 2 dogs out, etc.

The chance that 'n' dogs are out on any one day is C(6,n) x (1/3)^n x (2/3)^(6-n).
And given 'n' dogs are out, the chance that they do NOT meet is 200/200 x 199/200 x 198/200 ... (using the number of dogs that are out.)

Thus, the chance that no dogs meet on a single day is around 99.1717389885%
The chance that no dogs meet for 730 days is (99.1717389885%)^730 ≈ 0.2307745729%
Subtracting from 100%, you get the probability that at least two siblings will meet (100% - 0.230774573%) = 99.769225427%

A: (Part 2) The chance that any of the siblings meet during those 2 years is around 99.7692%

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jul 15, 2012): Is There a Doctor in the House?

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Jul 15, 2012): Is There a Doctor in the House?:

Q: The name of something that you might see your doctor about is a two-word phrase. Three letters in each word. When these six letters are written without a space, a three-letter word can be removed from inside, and the remaining three letters in order also form a word. What's interesting is that the four three-letter words — the two in the original phrase, the one that was removed, and the one that remains — all rhyme. What is the original phrase?

The picture this time is from Halloween 2005 when we all went as various doctors. Speaking of doctors, is there ever one in the house?

Edit: Perhaps too obviously, a moving, emotional theatrical performance can result in there not being a dry eye in the house.

A: DRY EYE --> D(RYE)YE = DYE & RYE