daily puzzle: the logic of aging

[RichD]

What kind of man doesn't die of old age?

This is on topic, as it utilizes logic, which is foundational to math.

--
Rich

[FromTheRafters]

RichD has brought this to us :

> What kind of man doesn't die of old age?
>
> This is on topic, as it utilizes logic, which is foundational to math.

A young man.

[RichD]

On September 22, FromTheRafters wrote:
>> What kind of man doesn't die of old age?
>> This is on topic, as it utilizes logic, which is foundational to math.
>
> A young man.

My agent warned me, this is a very tough room -

Try this one:
Inept Irving is determined to commit suicide. He goes
to a cliff edge, ties a noose around his neck, the other
end around a tree. He loads a gun, drinks arsenic, and
sets his pants afire.

Clues:
He dies.
He isn't killed by hanging, bullet, poison, or fire.
What happened?

--
Rich

[Mike Terry]

Sounds like a job for rec.puzzles! (It's OT for sci.math, despite your valliant attempt at
justifying it... :) )

Mike.

[Dan joyce]

The rope broke when he fell off the cliff. It ended for him at the bottom of the cliff.

[Chris M. Thomasson]

The rope was just _way_ too long. Inept Irving jumped off the damn cliff
and hit the ground, really hard, and died about ten minutes later? ;^)

[Chris M. Thomasson]

The rope was too long. Inept Irving leaped off the cliff and hit the
ground. This unfortunately caused Irving's head to explode all over the
place. Well, he didn't make it.

[FromTheRafters]

RichD wrote :

He jumped.

[RichD]

On September 23, Dan joyce wrote:
>> Inept Irving is determined to commit suicide. He goes
>> to a cliff edge, ties a noose around his neck, the other
>> end around a tree. He loads a gun, drinks arsenic, and
>> sets his pants afire.
>> Clues:
>> He dies.
>> He isn't killed by hanging, bullet, poison, or fire.
>> What happened?
>

> The rope broke when he fell off the cliff. It ended for him at the bottom

yawn
Imagination is a prerequisite for a mathematician.

Irving jumped and pulled the trigger. Of course he missed, but
the bullet severed the rope. He fell into the sea, dousing the
flame. He swallowed salt water, making him vomit the poison.
He drowned.

--
Rich

[Chris M. Thomasson]

Holy shit! I thought the rope was too long.

[FromTheRafters]

RichD used his keyboard to write :

No mention of sea at cliff bottom.

[David B.]

100% correct! 😅

[David Brooks]

Good answer! :-D

[RichD]

On September 23, Mike Terry wrote:
>>>> What kind of man doesn't die of old age?
>>>> This is on topic, as it utilizes logic, which is foundational to math.
>
> >> A young man.

>> Try this one:
>> Inept Irving is determined to commit suicide. He goes
>> to a cliff edge, ties a noose around his neck, the other
>> end around a tree. He loads a gun, drinks arsenic, and
>> sets his pants afire.
>> Clues:
>> He dies.
>> He isn't killed by hanging, bullet, poison, or fire.
>> What happened?
>
> Sounds like a job for rec.puzzles!
> (It's OT for sci.math, despite your valliant attempt at justifying it... :) )

You're just mad cuz you didn't solve it.
Here's a chance to redeem yourself:
A poem:

Now I, even I, would celebrate
In rhymes inapt, the great
Immortal Syracusan, rivaled nevermore,
Who, in his wondrous lore,
passed on before,
left men his guidance how to circles mensurate.


It's in code, what's the message?
This IS on topic -

--
Rich

[Mike Terry]

On 26/09/2023 20:13, RichD wrote:
> On September 23, Mike Terry wrote:
>>>>> What kind of man doesn't die of old age?
>>>>> This is on topic, as it utilizes logic, which is foundational to math.
>>
>>>> A young man.
>>> Try this one:
>>> Inept Irving is determined to commit suicide. He goes
>>> to a cliff edge, ties a noose around his neck, the other
>>> end around a tree. He loads a gun, drinks arsenic, and
>>> sets his pants afire.
>>> Clues:
>>> He dies.
>>> He isn't killed by hanging, bullet, poison, or fire.
>>> What happened?
>>
>> Sounds like a job for rec.puzzles!
>> (It's OT for sci.math, despite your valliant attempt at justifying it... :) )
>
> You're just mad cuz you didn't solve it.

Not at all! Your post was off topic for the group, so I thought maybe you didn't know about
rec.puzzles and would appreciate knowing a more appropriate group you could use in future.
Incidentally, there have been some replies to your puzzle in rec.puzzles, but nobody posted your
answer...

> Here's a chance to redeem yourself:
> A poem:
>
> Now I, even I, would celebrate
> In rhymes inapt, the great
> Immortal Syracusan, rivaled nevermore,
> Who, in his wondrous lore,
> passed on before,
> left men his guidance how to circles mensurate.
>

Pi (digits in base 10 encoded as length of words).

[RichD]

On September 26, Mike Terry wrote:
> >>>>> What kind of man doesn't die of old age?
> >>>>> This is on topic, as it utilizes logic, which is foundational to math.
>
> >>>> A young man.
> >>> Try this one:
> >>> Inept Irving is determined to commit suicide. He goes
> >>> to a cliff edge, ties a noose around his neck, the other
> >>> end around a tree. He loads a gun, drinks arsenic, and
> >>> sets his pants afire.
> >>> Clues:
> >>> He dies.
> >>> He isn't killed by hanging, bullet, poison, or fire.
> >>> What happened?
> >>
> >> Sounds like a job for rec.puzzles!
> >> (It's OT for sci.math, despite your valliant attempt at justifying it... :) )
>
>> You're just mad cuz you didn't solve it.
>
> Not at all! Your post was off topic for the group, so I thought maybe you didn't know about
> rec.puzzles and would appreciate knowing a more appropriate group you could use in future.
>

>> Here's a chance to redeem yourself:
>> A poem:
>> Now I, even I, would celebrate
>> In rhymes inapt, the great
>> Immortal Syracusan, rivaled nevermore,
>> Who, in his wondrous lore,
>> passed on before,
>> left men his guidance how to circles mensurate.
>
> Pi (digits in base 10 encoded as length of words).

Too easy, eh? Of all transcendental numbers, I had to pick
THAT one. Hold the phone, I chose a single point, with measure
zero, from an infinite uncountable set... refuting probability
theory! Do they hand out Nobels for that?

Try this:
There's a holiday, which may or may not qualify as religious,
opinionistically speaking, celebrated in USA, but not Europe. What is it?


--
Rich

[Barry Schwarz]

On Thu, 28 Sep 2023 14:53:15 -0700 (PDT), RichD
<r_dela...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Try this:
>There's a holiday, which may or may not qualify as religious,
>opinionistically speaking, celebrated in USA, but not Europe. What is it?

Halloween
Valentine's Day
Groundhog Day
St Patrick's Day
Memorial Day
Thanksgiving

--
Remove del for email

[RichD]

On September 28, Barry Schwarz wrote:
>> There's a holiday, which may or may not qualify as religious,
>> opinionistically speaking, celebrated in USA, but not Europe. What is it?
>
> Halloween
> Valentine's Day
> Groundhog Day
> St Patrick's Day
> Memorial Day
> Thanksgiving

Math, dude, math!

--
Rich

[John]

On Thu, 28 Sep 2023 15:19:02 -0700, Barry Schwarz <schw...@delq.com>
wrote:

The fourth day of July.

That's the one where the USAliens bang explosives together to scare
away the scary Furren Demons such as the English.

It's also the holiday when the USAliens massacre aliens in huge lots,
twice, and expect the entire planet to know why.

"We will not go gently into that good noight ..."

And the holiday where they sacrifice their fingers to the demigods of
fire, noise, ethanol and flags.

It's certainly more of a religious celebration than is their version
of Coca-cola-mas.

J.

[Mike Terry]

If the answer relates to something mathematical, I'd have a stab at Pi day (14/3), which is pretty
meaningless in Europe, but in USA it becomes 3/14, the first 3 digits of Pi. But... I can't see
anything remotely religious there. (And it's hardly a holiday!)

Probably unrelated - there's also an old joke: why do Unix programmers confuse Halloween and
Christmas Day?


Mike.

[RichD]

On September 28, Mike Terry wrote:
> >>> There's a holiday, which may or may not qualify as religious,
> >>> opinionistically speaking, celebrated in USA, but not Europe.
>

>> Math, dude, math!
>
> If the answer relates to something mathematical, I'd have a stab at Pi day (14/3), which is pretty
> meaningless in Europe, but in USA it becomes 3/14, the first 3 digits of Pi. But... I can't see
> anything remotely religious there. (And it's hardly a holiday!)

It's a religious holiday for the pagan numerologists, who deserve
a break, given their minority status, relative to the innumerates -


Anyway, try this:
Two mathematicians spend some time together. One of them,
sensing danger, warns the other. Then they die.
What happened?
Clues:
They aren't murdered.
No one else is involved.
The warning actually causes the occurence.

This is obviously on topic -

> Probably unrelated - there's also an old joke: why do Unix programmers confuse
> Halloween and Christmas Day?

I fail to see the connection between Unix and programmers -
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wr_5kgjW0n0/U0Esej3dZlI/AAAAAAAALMs/8r9Bvl3RDJw/s1600/IMG_5102.JPG

--
Rich

[Volney]

On 9/28/2023 11:22 PM, Mike Terry wrote:

> Probably unrelated - there's also an old joke:  why do Unix programmers
> confuse Halloween and Christmas Day?

I heard it as "PDP-11 programmers" rather than "Unix programmers". I'm
not sure the answer would apply as clearly to Unix rather than to
certain old computers.

[Barry Schwarz]

On Fri, 29 Sep 2023 11:11:04 -0700 (PDT), RichD
<r_dela...@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Anyway, try this:
>Two mathematicians spend some time together. One of them,
>sensing danger, warns the other. Then they die.
>What happened?
>Clues:
>They aren't murdered.
>No one else is involved.
>The warning actually causes the occurence.

They are riding in a car. The passenger warns the driver. This
causes the driver to suffer a heart attack and lose control of the
car. Both die in the resulting crash.

>This is obviously on topic -

Apparently a true story, it made the rounds of the college math
societies in New York City. Back in the 1960s, several prominent
mathematicians were engaged in a heated debate regarding a statement
in a complicated proof that read something like "This obviously leads
to ..." The validity of the proof was not in question nor was the
conclusion expressed in the statement. The argument was whether or
not the word "obviously" was appropriate.

In my opinion, your sentence has the same problem.

[Mike Terry]

Yes, that's no doubt right. Unix on later systems still had clear relics of Octal in its file
system permissions which were entered into some commands with an octal syntax, e.g. rwxr-x as (octal
syntax) 75. (Or whatever, it's been many years since I've used those commands...)

Anyway, the hook-in with Unix / PDP-11 is via thinking in octal number base...

The joke is definitely for the oldie computing clan - I once told it to younger (Windows based)
admins/programmers and when I gave the answer I just got totally blank looks! :)

Mike.

[Volney]

Yes I would expect hardly anyone under the age of 40 to get it, probably
very few under the age of 50.

The octal relics in Unix are because Unix was substantially developed on
the PDP-11 (and other octal based systems?) in its earliest days.

Scroll down if you want to see the answer.





















Because Oct. 31 = Dec. 25!

(I can hear everyone, even older people, saying "Huh?")

[RichD]

On September 29, Barry Schwarz wrote:
>>Two mathematicians spend some time together. One of them,
>>sensing danger, warns the other. Then they die.
>>What happened?
>>Clues:
>>They aren't murdered.
>>No one else is involved.
>>The warning actually causes the occurence.
>
> They are riding in a car. The passenger warns the driver. This
> causes the driver to suffer a heart attack and lose control of the
> car. Both die in the resulting crash.

hmmm, that's a reasonable guess. But still incorrect, as
it isn't the one I had in mind. Since it's my puzzle, my answer
is correct, and if you don't like it, invent your own.

They are mountain hiking. One sees avalanche danger.
He shouts a warning. The shout instigates the avalanche.

Mathematicians are good at theory, not so good at reality, like
loud noises and avalanches.

>>This is obviously on topic -
>
> Apparently a true story, it made the rounds of the college math
> societies in New York City. Back in the 1960s, several prominent
> mathematicians were engaged in a heated debate regarding a statement
> in a complicated proof that read something like "This obviously leads
> to ..." The validity of the proof was not in question nor was the
> conclusion expressed in the statement. The argument was whether or
> not the word "obviously" was appropriate.
> In my opinion, your sentence has the same problem.

'obviously' is obviously subjective, hence unworthy of
contentiousness among putatively rational mathematicians.

Since such a claim is unfalsifiable, it obviously shouldn't
be censored, as a matter of free expression.

--
Rich

[Chris M. Thomasson]

On 9/30/2023 11:16 AM, RichD wrote:
> On September 29, Barry Schwarz wrote:
>>> Two mathematicians spend some time together. One of them,
>>> sensing danger, warns the other. Then they die.
>>> What happened?
>>> Clues:
>>> They aren't murdered.
>>> No one else is involved.
>>> The warning actually causes the occurence.
>>
>> They are riding in a car. The passenger warns the driver. This
>> causes the driver to suffer a heart attack and lose control of the
>> car. Both die in the resulting crash.
>
> hmmm, that's a reasonable guess. But still incorrect, as
> it isn't the one I had in mind. Since it's my puzzle, my answer
> is correct, and if you don't like it, invent your own.

Even though some of your puzzles have multiple solutions? For instance,
afaict and iirc, the rope was too long causing Inept Irving to hit the
ground after he jumped off the cliff works wrt fitting in with _your_
rules. Inept Irving died from his head exploding all over the place on
the ground, not from hanging, fire, poisoning, ect...

Inept Irving did not die from hanging because the rope was too long to
actually hang him. His exploding skull killed him when he hit the damn
ground because he failed to measure to the length of the rope he tied to
a tree on top of the cliff and his neck.

>
> They are mountain hiking. One sees avalanche danger.
> He shouts a warning. The shout instigates the avalanche.

;^)



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