Story

Safe life-appreciation booster on trial

17th March 2023 by philcain

This is fiction.

Scientists are trialling a suite of life-affirming placebo dangers to perk up listless middle-life men.

A disproportionate number of men around 50 try to rekindle the devil-may-care attitude of their youth by taking risks which lead to harm.

Motorbike accidents among middle-aged men rose by nearly two thirds in the years since 2013 thanks to this phenomenon, for example.

“We can now treat men going through this common ‘kamikaze phase’,” says Dr Tracey Compton of MomentoMori. “A wake up call is all that is needed to restore balance.

Forcing people to confront their mortality rather than maintaining a state of denial has been found to reduce people’s appetite for risk taking, Dr Compton explains.

To deliver this jolt Dr Compton’s clinic offers patients a range of worrisome medical adventures. “We do everything from heart palpitation to testicular cancer. ”

“I was absolutely bricking it,” says Eric, who was given the impression he had a dangerously clogged carotid artery as part of secret 56th birthday gift from wife Jane.

“I was quite peeved when the wife first told me it was a wind up, but I was so relieved I wasn’t dying I forgave her,” says Eric, who dropped paragliding for gardening.

Relatives can choose from a range of placebo health crises, all guaranteed reminders that life is short enough as it is, without finding new ways to end it early.

“A convincing simulation of impending doom takes patients on a journey, leading most to the firm conclusion that they probably best playing safe,” said Dr Compton.

The cutting edge technique has caused some rifts, she admits, when patients are not as understanding about the well-meaning prank as Eric.

“The strange thing is that we have also had several repeat customers,” says Dr Compton. Eric told Untrue he would be keen to repeat the experience.

“I can’t say I enjoyed the experience, exactly, but I did come out feeling more alive than before.” ■

How’s this possible?

15th March 2023 by philcain

Why does a one-square hole open up when we rearrange these shapes, as shown below?

Click for answer

The longest sides of what appear to be “triangles” are bent. You can read a more thorough explanation here.

I’ll try and come up with a more satisfactory explanation.

Divide your timer

11th March 2023 by philcain

Can you draw two straight lines to cut the clock dial into two sets of numbers with the same sum? And can you do it with five lines to create six groups with an equal sum?

Reveal the solution

With two lines you’re going to get three sections if your lines do not cross. So, to be equal, they must be a third of the sum of the digits on the clock, meaning they are 78/3. Look for groups of numbers lying together with this sum and you will get the top and bottom groups. The middle one will come automatically. Follow a similar process with the five lines. A possible snarl-up would be if you started investigating crossing lines. With the first you could rule it out because 78 does not divide by four. With the second it is in the question. Sorry if this happened. Try to explore the “easy” case first.

This yin-yang symbol is made of a circle with two semicircles in the middle to define the border between yin (black) and yang (white) areas. Can you draw a single straight line to divide both areas in half?

Reveal the solution

We can start by patiently working out the areas of the different elements of the symbol. We find each quarter of the large circle is πr²/4, where r is the radius of ths circle. We also find that the areas of each of the two semicircles is πr²/8, half the area of the quarter segment of the large circle. That is a crucial “coincidence”. And. moving on, πr²/8 is also the area inside a quarter circle on either side of a line drawn at 45 degrees the horizontal (the red dashed line). If we now pause and tot up the areas of white and black each side of this same line we get 2 x πr²/8 each time. So this line cuts each of the coloured area in half. Job done. Some investigation was needed, but spotting a “coincidence” was really what makes this one click into place almost by itself.

This is a well known one, but it came to my attention again thanks to mindbending maestro Martin Gardiner.

Can you identify a liar?

3rd March 2023 by philcain

Meet Andy, Bob and Chris. We know one of them always tells the truth, one always lies and another does a bit of both. Andy says, “Chris is the one who mixes truth and lies.” Bernie says, “Andy is a liar.” And Chris says, “I mix truth and lies.” Which is which?

Reveal the solution

Chris can’t be the consistent truth teller, because his statement would be a lie. Now if we imagine Bernie was the truth teller then his statement would mean Andy is the compulsive liar, but he can’t be because Andy’s statement about Chris would be true. So that only leave the option of Andy being the truth-teller, making Chris the one who mixes truth and lies, and Bob the liar.

Adapted from a puzzle by Raymond Smullyan.