Puzzles & String
I forgot to mention the cool string puzzle Jason got from his aunt. Here's a version of it, mostly cribbed from
here.
You are given two pieces of string made from a strange material, and a lighter. You are told that the strings have been made in such a way that when lit from any one end, each string burns all the way in exactly 1 hour. The strings however, have been made by hand, so they don't burn evenly. (For example, one string could have a lump near the end of it that takes most of the entire hour to burn.) So all you know is that the whole string will burn in an hour, not that half of it will burn in half-an-hour etc. Use the strings to measure 45 minutes.
Posted by Liz at June 3, 2003 10:12 AM