Math Is Fun Forum

Wednesday dead and buried already - I didn't think we were going to get so far so soon ...

But seriously, I think bobbym is onto something here. Random picking is logically out, because it amounts to Russian roulette, the prof will have to rely on his luck to vindicate himself. God help him if the random picker chooses Friday or Thursday, because he's going to look very, very stupid... so I am inclined to think also that this is not a logic problem really, more a philosophical, semantic problem to do with the meaning of words like "know".

Imagine trying to set up a machine that could perform all the parts of the professor's role. And make his claims about "who" would "know" what. I don't see how such a machine could be constructed.

So my answer to the riddle is that nothing can be known, ever. The world might end tomorrow, so the professor has no right to say the test will happen at all. And equally the students will never "know" anything anyway. But I'm not really satisfied with that either.

anonim, I saw you were in a hurry to get onto Wednesday, and now you are going back to Thursday! You're making me nervous! I was going to post

slowly, slowly catchee monkey... "They stumble that run fast" (Romeo and Juliet, if I remember correctly)

but then I saw bobbym's carefully considered post and I thought that would make things clearer ... but apparently not.

And while I was typing this I saw there was another post in the meantime but if I have to abort every time I'll never get a word in...

Hi Phrontister,

Notice, in Bob's post, the following:"
Because, for example, at the end of Wednesday the logic is "We've reached the end of Wednesday, so it could be on Thursday or Friday".
"
But you say you think it can't be on Friday, whereas Bob is suggesting that it can be. This difference needs to be settled. If we are to reach agreement.

Hi anonim,

I'm following your excursions into the past again... because I've always had an everlasting fascination for codes, spent many, many hours devising bridge bidding systems in the old days when there were not so many restrictions...

I want to add to my puzzles, coded clues! So that the code can be very easily and quickly deciphered. Hiding one 4-letter word in a 12x12 matrix is not my idea of elegance. The following code hides one word in a sequence of 14 letters. To solve:

You can just write the answer down straight away, without having burdened your memory with more than about 5 bits of knowledge.

ASYIFKMKTUBZRB

Warning: The word you are looking for is not valid in scrabble, it's a name and a very rare one at that. It does, however, appear in Google, it's a name of great antiquity.

Hi anonim and hs, welcome to this game!

No correct words yet.

If and when it seems as if you guys have run out of ideas to test, I'll add more words as clues.

- Those were fun days; I've now become more active with these games once more.

My challenging word games have been solved about six or seven times.

Two solvers emerged from a writer's forum, one from a chess forum, and recently, two from a UKDebate forum.

It would be nice if all these aces could see my newest puzzles, and maybe be not so lonely as they've always been up to now.

I'm inviting you, and will invite them all, to go to my new forum dedicated specially to such puzzles:  http://afroditi.proboards.com .

There  I'll keep some puzzles going. There are no chores of registration - guests can post and start threads - , but of course you would be most welcome to register.

Hope to see you there!
Gurth.

- Agreed.

A flat earth (well, ignoring a few mountains and other anomalies) makes some sense. Those living on the bottom side of the disc would think they were on top, just as the New Zealanders probably think they are on top instead of "down under."

And that solves the mystery of exactly where hell is! We of course are all in heaven. Or have I got things upside down?

Solution to #1:

Solution to #3:

Solution to #2:

#10
Unfinished game (3)