Tag Archives: logic

Puzzle of the Purloined Papers

Ian Stewart has a nice logic problem in his Casebook of Mathematical Mysteries, which includes a pastiche of Sherlock Holmes in the form of Herlock Soames and Dr. Watsup, along with brother Spycraft and nemesis Dr. Mogiarty.

“An important document was accidentally mislaid, and then stolen,” Spycraft said. “It is essential to the security of the British Empire that it be recovered without delay. If it gets into the hands of our enemies, careers will be ruined and parts of the Empire may fall. Fortunately, a local constable caught a glimpse of the thief, enough to narrow it down to precisely one of four men.”

“Petty thieves?”

“No, all four are gentlemen of high repute. Admiral Arbuthnot, Bishop Burlington, Captain Charlesworth, and Doctor Dashingham.”

Soames sat bolt upright. “Mogiarty has a hand in this, then.”

Not following his reasoning, I asked him to explain.

“All four are spies, Watsup. Working for Mogiarty.”

“Then … Spycraft must be engaged in counter-espionage!” I cried.

“Yes.” He glanced at his brother. “But you did not hear that from me.”

“Have these traitors been questioned?” I asked.

Spycraft handed me a dossier, and I read it aloud for Soames’s benefit. “Under interrogation Arbuthnot said ‘Burlington did it.’ Burlington said ‘Arbuthnot is lying.’ Charlesworth said ‘It was not I.’ Dashingham said ‘Arbuthnot did it.’ That is all.”

“Not quite all. We know from another source that exactly one of them was telling the truth.”

“You have an informer in Mogiarty’s inner circle, Spycraft?”

“We had an informer, Hemlock. He was garrotted with his own necktie before he could tell us the actual name. Very sad—it was an Old Etonian tie, totally ruined. However, all is not lost. If we can deduce who was the thief, we can obtain a search warrant and recover the document. All four men are being watched; they will have no opportunity to pass the document to Mogiarty. But our hands are tied; we must stick to the letter of the law. Moreover, if we raid the wrong premises, Mogiarty’s lawyers will publicise the mistake and cause irreparable damage.”

Which man was the thief?

See the Purloined Papers Puzzle.

Rock, Paper, Scissors Problem

Here is another problem from the Sherlock Holmes puzzle book by Dr. Watson (aka Tim Dedopulos).

“Wiggins grinned at me. ‘You’ve not played Rock Paper Scissors before, Doctor?’

‘Doesn’t ring a bell,’ I told him.

‘Two of you randomly pick one of the three, and shout your choice simultaneously. There are hand gestures, too. If you both get the same, it’s a draw. Otherwise, scissors beats paper, paper beats rock, and rock beats scissors.’

‘So it’s a way of settling an argument,’ I suggested.

‘You were brought up wrong, Doctor,’ Wiggins said gravely. ‘Look, try it this way. I played a series of ten games with Alice earlier. I picked scissors six times, rock three times, and paper once. She picked scissors four times, rock twice, and paper four times. None of our games were drawn.’ He glanced at Holmes, who nodded. ‘So then, Doctor. What was the overall score for the series?’ ”

See the Rock Paper Scissors Problem

(Update 7/29/2021)  This problem in a different guise was presented by Futility Closet (7/28/2021) and attributed to Yoshinao Katagiri in Nobuyuki Yoshigahara’s Puzzles 101: A Puzzlemaster’s Challenge, 2004.

Do I Avoid Kangaroos?

This is a fun logic puzzle from one of Ian Stewart’s many math collections.  I discovered that the problem actually is basically one of Lewis Carroll’s examples from an 1896 book:

  1. The only animals in this house are cats.
  2. Every animal that loves to gaze at the moon is suitable for a pet.
  3. When I detest an animal, I avoid it.
  4. No animals are meat-eaters, unless they prowl by night.
  5. No cat fails to kill mice.
  6. No Animals ever take to me, except those in this house.
  7. Kangaroos are not suitable for pets.
  8. Only meat-eaters kill mice.
  9. I detest animals that do not take to me.
  10. Animals that prowl at night love to gaze at the moon.

If all these statements are correct, do I avoid kangaroos, or not?

See Do I Avoid Kangaroos?

Swallowing Elephants

This is a simple logic puzzle from one of Ian Stewart’s many math collections.

  1. Elephants always wear pink trousers.
  2. Every creature that eats honey can play the bagpipes.
  3. Anything that is easy to swallow eats honey.
  4. No creature that wears pink trousers can play the bagpipes.

Therefore:

Elephants are easy to swallow.

Is the deduction correct, or not?

See Swallowing Elephants

The Squirrel Puzzle

For a change of pace, here is an early puzzle from Alex Bellos in The Guardian.

“Happy New Year guzzlers!  Today’s first problem concerns squirrels. Have a nibble—it’s not too hard a nut to crack.

The Squirrel King has buried the Golden Acorn beneath one of the squares in this 6x6 grid. Three squirrels—Black, Grey and Red—are each standing on a square in the grid, as illustrated.

(Note: for the purposes of today, squirrels can speak, hear, read, count and are perfect logicians. They can also move in any direction horizontally and vertically, not just the direction these cartoons are facing. They all can see where each other is standing, and the cells in the grid are to be considered squares.)

The Squirrel King hands each squirrel a card, on which a number is written. The squirrels can read only the number on their own card. The King tells them: ‘Each card has a different number on it, and your card tells you the number of steps you are from the square with the Golden Acorn. Moving one square horizontally or vertically along the grid counts as a single step.’ (So if the acorn was under Black, Black’s card would say 0, Grey’s would say 4, and Red’s 5. Also, the number of steps given means the shortest possible number of steps from each squirrel to the acorn.)

The King asks them: ‘Do you know the square where the Golden Acorn is buried?’ They all reply ‘no!’ at once.

Red then says: ‘Now I know!’

Where is the Golden Acorn buried? …”

See the Squirrel Puzzle

Math and Literature

For a number of years I have collected excerpts that portray mathematical ideas in a literary or philosophical setting. I had occasion to read a few of these on the last day of some math classes I was teaching, since there was no point in introducing a new subject before the final exam.

I thought it might be interesting to present some of these excerpts now. They roughly fall into three categories: logic, infinities (Zeno’s Paradoxes, infinite regress), and permutations.

See Math and Literature

(Update 11/16/2019) Continue reading