We are celebrating the centenary of Albert Einstein?s miraculous year. In 1905, he gave us Special Relativity among other things.
The formula that most of us, including those who are not mathematics enthusiasts, love to sport on our T-shirts ? E=mc2 ? was unveiled in that year, although not in the same form. No wonder, all over the world celebrations are on to remember the wonderful brainwaves of Einstein. Why aren?t we also celebrating the miracle in a big way? Every morning I open the newspaper to find more on the Bihar election, murder, kidnapping and stock market, but nothing on the International Year of Physics. Progress without mathematics and basic science is a utopia, but our politicians want us to believe in the contrary.
PUZZLE 1: During the final round of Madrid?s All-Spain Chess Tournament, the eventual top 4 finishers played their final game against four different opponents. The tournament boards were numbered from 1 to 50 to facilitate the location and identification of games. Each of the top four finishers played a different opening in this last game. Use the clues below to determine the first and last names of the first-through-fourth-place winners of the tournament, the chess opening each used in his last game, and the number of the chess board on which he played his final game. Mr Hart played the King?s Indian Defence. Steve placed ahead of the one who used the Ruy Lopez opening. The top four players were Larry, Mr Korn, the contestant who opened with Queen?s Gambit, and a player who played on an even-numbered board. Mr Rose finished exactly two places ahead of the player on board 31. The number of the third-place winner?s board is at least 10 higher or at least 10 lower than that of Mr Baird. The number of the board of the contestant who placed immediately after Bert is exactly 15 higher than the number of the board played by the one who placed immediately before Tom. The lowest board number of the top four finishers was exactly half the number of the board played by the one who placed immediately after the one who played the Giuoco Piano opening. The highest board number was exactly 8 higher than the board number of the man who finished exactly two places after Bert.
Solutions on March 7
CORRECT ENTRIES
February 7
Subhash Das,Durgapur;Amitabh Roy Sharma, Bokaro Steel City; Dibakar Mazumdar,Haldia Institute of Technology;Mithun Kumar Giri,Contai;Rima Das Narula Institute Of Technology; Anirban Basumallik,DBPC;Radhamohan Kejriwal, Ranigunje; Subrato Ranjan, KITS-Bhubaneswar; S.K. Choudhary, Durgapur
Please send your entries to knowhow@abpmail.com within 10 days. Snail mail: KnowHOW, The Telegraph, 6, Prafulla Sarkar Street, Calcutta- 700 001.
PUZZLE CRACKED
The response this week was rather dismal. There were just a handful of correct entries. Solution 1: There are many possible solutions for this puzzle. Since one times eight is the same as two times four, sets that contain these two pairs plus two other identical numbers (like 1, 8, 3, 5) and (2, 4, 3, 5) have the same product. Likewise, since one and six and two and three have the same product, sets like 1, 6, 7, 8 and 2, 3, 7, 8 have the same product.
Solution 2: (i) S, M, T, W, T, F and S (days).
(ii) , T, T, F, F, S, S, E, N and T (the counting numbers).
(iii) J, F, M, A, M, J, J, A, S, , N and D (months of the year).
(iv) M, V, E, M, J, S, U, N and P (planets in the solar system).
(v) F, S, T, F, F, S, S, E, N and T (ordinal numbers: first, second ...).
