{"id":2128,"date":"2021-05-08T08:02:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-08T12:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/?p=2128"},"modified":"2024-04-07T18:52:38","modified_gmt":"2024-04-07T22:52:38","slug":"old-hook-puzzle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/2021\/05\/08\/old-hook-puzzle\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Hook Puzzle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Here is another, more challenging, problem from the Sherlock Holmes puzzle book by Dr. Watson (aka Tim Dedopulos).<\/p>\n

\u201cAn event that occurred during The Adventure of the Wandering Bishops <\/em>inspired Holmes to devise a particularly tricky little mental exercise for my ongoing improvement. There were times when I thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed his efforts, and times when I found them somewhat unwelcome. I\u2019m afraid that this was one of the latter occasions. It had been a bad week.<\/p>\n

\u2018Picture three farmers,\u2019 Holmes told me. \u2018Hooklanders. We\u2019ll call them Ern, Ted, and Hob.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018If I must,\u2019 I muttered.<\/p>\n

\u2018It will help,\u2019 Holmes replied. \u2018Ern has a horse and cart, with an average speed of eight mph. Ted can walk just one mph, given his bad knee, and Hob is a little better at two mph, thanks to his back.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018A fine shower,\u2019 I said. \u2018Can\u2019t I imagine them somewhat fitter?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Together, these worthies want to go from Old Hook to Coreham, a journey of 40 miles. So Ern got Ted in his cart, drove him most of the way, and dropped him off to walk the rest. Then he went back to get Hob [who was still walking], and took him into Coreham, arriving exactly as Ted did. How long did the journey take?\u2019<\/p>\n

Can you find a solution?\u201d<\/p>\n

I added the statement in brackets.\u00a0 I initially thought Hob waited in Old Hook until Ted fetched him.\u00a0 But the solution indicated that was not the case.\u00a0 So I realized Hob had started out at the same time as the others. The solution has some hairy arithmetic.\u00a0 Even knowing the answer it is difficult to do the computations without a mistake.<\/p>\n

Answer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

See the Old Hook Puzzle<\/a> for solutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is another, more challenging, problem from the Sherlock Holmes puzzle book by Dr. Watson (aka Tim Dedopulos). \u201cAn event that occurred during The Adventure of the Wandering Bishops inspired Holmes to devise a particularly tricky little mental exercise for my ongoing improvement. There were times when I thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed his efforts, and […]<\/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":[133,193,81],"class_list":["post-2128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-puzzles-and-problems","tag-algebra","tag-tim-dedopulos","tag-travel-puzzles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128","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=2128"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3687,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128\/revisions\/3687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josmfs.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}