: Amusements in Mathematics by Dudeney Henry Ernest - Mathematical recreations; Puzzles

@FreeBooksTue 06 Jun, 2023

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motion while looking at the centre of the spiral, it will appear to revolve. Perhaps a good many readers are acquainted with this little optical illusion. But the puzzle is to show how I was able to draw this spiral with so much exactitude without using anything but a pair of compasses and the sheet of paper on which the diagram was made. How would you proceed in such circumstances?

Can you draw a perfect oval on a sheet of paper with one sweep of the compasses? It is one of the easiest things in the world when you know how.

At a celebration of the national festival of St. George's Day I was contemplating the familiar banner of the patron saint of our country. We all know the red cross on a white ground, shown in our illustration. This is the banner of St. George. The banner of St. Andrew is a white "St. Andrew's Cross" on a blue ground. That of St. Patrick is a similar cross in red on a white ground. These three are united in one to form our Union Jack.

Now on looking at St. George's banner it occurred to me that the following question would make a simple but pretty little puzzle. Supposing the flag measures four feet by three feet, how wide must the arm of the cross be if it is required that there shall be used just the same quantity of red and of white bunting?

A boy tied a clothes line from the top of each of two poles to the base of the other. He then proposed to his father the following question. As one pole was exactly seven feet above the ground and the other exactly five feet, what was the height from the ground where the two cords crossed one another?

Here is a little pastoral puzzle that the reader may, at first sight, be led into supposing is very profound, involving deep calculations. He may even say that it is quite impossible to give any answer unless we are told something definite as to the distances. And yet it is really quite "childlike and bland."

In the corner of a field is seen a milkmaid milking a cow, and on the other side of the field is the dairy where the extract has to be deposited. But it has been noticed that the young woman always goes down to the river with her pail before returning to the dairy. Here the suspicious reader will perhaps ask why she pays these visits to the river. I can only reply that it is no business of ours. The alleged milk is entirely for local consumption.

If one had any curiosity in the matter, such an independent spirit would entirely disarm one. So we will pass from the point of commercial morality to the subject of the puzzle.

Draw a line from the milking-stool down to the river and thence to the door of the dairy, which shall indicate the shortest possible route for the milkmaid. That is all. It is quite easy to indicate the exact spot on the bank of the river to which she should direct her steps if she wants as short a walk as possible. Can you find that spot?

A stonemason was engaged the other day in cutting out a round ball for the purpose of some architectural decoration, when a smart schoolboy came upon the scene.

"Look here," said the mason, "you seem to be a sharp youngster, can you tell me this? If I placed this ball on the level ground, how many other balls of the same size could I lay around it so that every ball should touch this one?"

The boy at once gave the correct answer, and then put this little question to the mason:--

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