{"id":1750,"date":"2020-09-12T09:11:35","date_gmt":"2020-09-12T13:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josmfs.net\/?p=1750"},"modified":"2021-01-05T18:52:48","modified_gmt":"2021-01-05T23:52:48","slug":"the-squirrel-puzzle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/2020\/09\/12\/the-squirrel-puzzle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Squirrel Puzzle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"For a change of pace, here is an early puzzle <\/a>from Alex Bellos in The Guardian<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHappy New Year guzzlers!\u00a0 Today\u2019s first problem concerns squirrels. Have a nibble\u2014it\u2019s not too hard a nut to crack.<\/p>\n

The Squirrel King has buried the Golden Acorn beneath one of the squares in this 6<\/em>x6 grid. Three squirrels\u2014Black, Grey and Red\u2014are each standing on a square in the grid, as illustrated. <\/em><\/p>\n

(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.)<\/p>\n

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: \u2018Each 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.\u2019 (So if the acorn was under Black, Black\u2019s card would say 0, Grey\u2019s would say 4, and Red\u2019s 5. Also, the number of steps given means the shortest possible number of steps from each squirrel to the acorn.)<\/em><\/p>\n

The King asks them: \u2018Do you know the square where the Golden Acorn is buried?\u2019 They all reply \u2018no!\u2019 at once.<\/em><\/p>\n

Red then says: \u2018Now I know!\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Where is the Golden Acorn buried? \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

See the Squirrel Puzzle<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a change of pace, here is an early puzzle from Alex Bellos in The Guardian. \u201cHappy New Year guzzlers!\u00a0 Today\u2019s first problem concerns squirrels. Have a nibble\u2014it\u2019s not too hard a nut to crack. The Squirrel King has buried the Golden Acorn beneath one of the squares in this 6×6 grid. Three squirrels\u2014Black, Grey […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15,174],"class_list":["post-1750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-puzzles-and-problems","tag-alex-bellos","tag-logic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1750"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1940,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions\/1940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}