If wishes were horses, a math-haunted would ride them. Among many things that could help people fight the math bugbear is a resource centre ? a sort of math-lab for the common man.

You could read anything there; play, paint, dream or even watch a film on the subject. The only thing missing would be math teacher archetypes, textbooks, and, of course, homework. If one were really serious about dispelling the myth of a math-monster, one would have established quite a few such centres by now. Unfortunately, we talk too much and leave it for others to take action.

A friend of mine was courageous enough to submit a project report on how to create such a centre to a local school education body. Nothing has happened since. By the way, that was 15 years ago.

PUZZLE 1: All the words below relate to car parts. The code used for each word is the same. For example, if you determine that the letter A is really the letter E in the first word, this is true for every word in the list:

(1) GFIYPRNPPNDY; (2) EKZZA; (3) XHANYJZF; (4) OFIVZ UIJ;

(5) NCYNGNDY; (6) PUIFV UAWC;

(7) FIJNIGDF; (8) ENYJPKNZAJ;

(9) RWTTAZF

What are the words?

PUZZLE 2: Newly-wed couple Palash and Teesta are planning a family. They’ve decided that they will have four children; no more, no less. They really don’t want all four boys or all four girls but will prefer more of a balanced brood.

Assuming a 50-50 chance for a boy or a girl, are they more likely to end up with...

(1) two boys and two girls? or

(2) three of one sex and one of the other?

Solutions on May 23

CORRECT ENTRIES

April 18

Manas Ghose; A. K. Majumdar; Sukanta Majumdar; Sritam Saha; Abhishek Dey Das; Joyita Mukherjee; Gangotri Dey; Manisha Mukherjee; Rahul Dhadania; Abhigyan Mundhra; Manas K Dey; Ramendra Hazarika; Swarnabha Mukherjee; Shanlang Dympep; Ajitesh S. Das;Zia-ul Hoque; Caesar Das; Arnab Dey; Abhinandan Khan; Asmita Bhattacharya; Angshumit Dasgupta; Nitin Singhania; Ayan Samadder Chaudhuri; Arunabha Sengupta; Sugata Sadhukhan; Alok Brahmachari; Bibhas Roy; Saikat Sinchan Sain; Sankha S. Banerjee; Sayee Ganesh.G; Sreechandra Banerjee; Rajat Shaw; K.V. Rao; Gaurav Konar; Aritra Mukherjee; Reshmi Adhikari; Ahana Roychoudhury; Abhinav Gupta; F.Lalngaihzuala; Shayak Bhattacharjee; Ankur Ghosh; Sudipta Roy; Rituparno Sen; Abhisek Banerjee; S.P.S. Jain; Keshaw Raj Jajware; Md. Abu Sufian; Bodhisattva Dasgupta; Dipanjan Gupta; Avishek Neogi; Devika Bharati; Deepak K Agarwal; Bancha Dutta; Santanu Tosh; Rajat Tibrewal; Anindya Saha; Aniruddha Mukherjee;Samina Nusrat; Vikash Jain; Kisholoy Roy; Adity Mukherjee; Sourav Dey; Dushyant Chhetri; Deep Mukherjee; Amir Merchant; Sidharth Udani; Kunal Singh.

PUZZLE CRACKED

Solution for puzzles on April 25: DOG ? Doggedly determined to succeed, Tom grit his teeth and tried again./COW ? Peter called Davy a coward because he wouldn’t fight./ SWINE or EWE ? ?The boys win every time we play!? groaned Lisa./GOAT ? To start the road race, all the contestants were told to go at the green light./HORSE or HEN ? ?You know I abhor secrets!? exclaimed John’s mother when she caught the two kids whispering./CAT ? Jim lunged for the ball, catching it just in time to make the final out./RABBIT or HEN ? The Arab bit his lip when he got angry./ HEN ? I walked up the neat pathway and knocked on the door./LAMB ? ?Look at this bedlam, boy! See what you caused?? cried the outraged shop owner./MOUSE ? ?Elmo used up all the paint!? complained his little brother.