May 2001: The King Was in His Countinghouse
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THE DISCOVER BOGGLER May 2001: The King Was in His Countinghouse |
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| The Toothpick Tally. I started from the classic problem of counting how many squares there are in a grid of a particular size, and tried to think of new variations. I soon thought of taking away and adding extra lines. But as usual when I make up a new puzzle, I first had to solve it myself. Through a comedy of errors two puzzle experts and myself managed to come up with many wrong answers. Here's the whole story, as told by Nick Baxter. He adapted one of the puzzles for use in the annual World Puzzle Competition, before it appeared in Discover.
Don't Count that Dial! I've known for some time that the US is quickly running out of phone numbers. It seems that every few years I have to learn a whole new set of area codes. Curious about how these codes are chosen, I looked around on the web and found the North American Numbering Plan, the governing body for area codes. Question 2 is based directly on the list of conditions given for area codes on this site. Counting on Your Fingers. I'm of Korean ancestry, so I've always been curious to know about Chisenbop, a Korean system for doing arithemetic on your hands. The Discover Boggler gave me a good excuse to find out, and that became question 2 of this puzzle. Each hand in Chisenbop acts like one column of an abacus, with the thumb and four fingers corresponding to the groups of 1 and 4 beads. |
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Copyright 2000 Scott Kim. All rights reserved. |
