"A strange thing hangs by a man's thigh, hidden by a garment.
It has a hole in its head. It is stiff and strong and its firm bearing reaps a reward.
When the man hitches his clothing high above his knee, he wants the head of that hanging thing to poke the old hole (of fitting length) it has often filled before."
Source: A History of Western Society by McKay and Scott.
A key?
Well done!
What timepiece has the fewest moving parts? What timepiece has the most?
A sundial and an hourglass.
This one turns up in various places on the internet, with no solution. I'll be interested to see if we get one this time.
Oxygen or "air".
1.It's "the key to life and death" because you must breathe to live or you will die.
2. "If you do not find it in your house you will find it nowhere" because if you don't have air to breathe in your house, you won't live to go anywhere else.
3."It's before everyone's eyes; No one can live without it; everyone has used it..."
Again, we all must breathe.
4."The poor usually possess more of it than the rich; children play with it in the streets..."
The poor usually have less resources to shelter themselves from the elements including hot air in the summer and are more exposed to it.
Children play with it in the streets. Children who grow up poor must learn to use the air as a "prop" as they pretend. For example, the child who flaps their arms in the air and says they are flying are really just pretending to fly and are using the air around them as a prop to represent the sky.
5. "The meek and uneducated esteem it highly but the rich often throw it away"...
The meek and uneducated esteem cooled air during the summer and heated air during the winter highly for reasons of comfort and yet the rich often use it wastefully without the need to conserve it as much because they can afford to pay for the heated or cooled air whenever they like without having to worry about running out of resources like kerosene fuel for heated air or freon gas for cooled air, etc.
6. "When rejected, it lies dormant in the bowels of the earth..."
When we breathe in oxygen, the human body "rejects" or exhales the rest of the air in the form of carbon dioxide which is absorbed by trees, plants and ultimately back into the earth and below its surface. When we burn fuels, the carbon dioxide gas goes back to lie dormant in the bowels of the earth where it collects for millions of years too.
"It is the only thing from which the Philosopher's Stone can be prepared, and without it, no noble metal can ever be created."
The Philosopher's Stone had to do with alchemy and was broken into 4 main elements:
1.Air
2.Fire
3.Earth
4.Water
By definition, The noble metals are metals that are resistant to corrosion and oxidation in moist air, unlike most base metals
Therefore, if the metals do not have moist *air* from which to resist corrosion and oxidation, they would be just like base metals and wouldn't be considered noble metals.
So for these reasons and justifications, I submit to you the answer, "Air".
Not bad. I respectfully submit however that:
2. In the entire history of mankind, I would be surprised to learn that there had ever been anyone anywhere who had no air in his house.
5. The meek and uneducated pay no attention to air, they take it for granted.
6. Exhaled air does not end up in the bowels of the earth, it is overwhelmingly recycled into the atmosphere.
Thanks bud. Were those 3 really the only ones you had trouble following? That's understandable without some more explanation to remove any opportunity for you to miss it. So Iet's explain.
In regards to the #2, that's exactly the point. No one went without the air in their house because they'd die if they did. However, plenty have died of smoke inhalation in their own homes as the smoke prevented them from getting the air they needed in their own home and as a result, they weren't able to get it outside of their home either, just as the riddle says.
For #5, I'll admit that one could seem like a stretch at first, but if you really thoughtfully consider it's the poor and meek who are usually the most grateful for the simple things, you'll probably recall hearing someone saying a prayer of thanksgiving for simply having air to breathe. On the other hand, the rich are often generalized as being too busy with all their worldly entrapments and entanglements to stop and be thankful for such simple things common to every man.
And for #6, you'll find carbon dioxide gas, after being rejected, is indeed lying dormant in the bowels of the earth and in fact buried a hundred miles under the earth, heated 2,200 degrees, pressured 725,000 pounds per square inch and then returns to the earth's surface to cool. That's one way diamonds are made.
1) You are participating in a race. You overtake the second person. What position are you now in?
2) There are 9 coins. One of the coins is fake and weighs less than the others. You can only weigh the coins twice using a balance scale. Can you find the fake coin?
3) Three men walk in the desert. They get hungry and decide to cook some rice. The first man has 4 pounds of rice, the second man has 2 pounds of rice, and the third man has none. However, the third man has 6 dollars, so he decides to pay for his share of rice. The men eat 2 pounds of rice each. How should the third man devide his money between the other two?
4) You want to boil an egg for exactly 15 minutes. In your disposal you have two hourglasses, one has 11 minutes and the other has 7 minutes. How can you achieve this?
5) Same question as before, but you're really hungry. So you started boiling the egg right off the bat.
#4
start both hour glasses at the same time and when the 7 min hour glass finishes, start cooking. when the 11min hr glass finishes, flip it over and cook til it's top empties....that is 15 minutes....4 minutes from the remaining time of the 1st use of the 11, min hr glass + 11 minutes for it's 2nd use.....
#1....overtook the second person you came upon ? or the person in second place ?
#2....as you begin to place the coins on the balance scale, do so one coin at a time per side. as soon as the scale wont balance, you know the coin that is a fraud is on one side or the other. simply remove the previosly used coins before the imbalance, leaving the imbalanced coins with fraud. to determine which side of scale it is on, remove one of the coins from one side and exchange it for another, if the scale balances, the last one you removed is the fraud, if it still doesn't, it is on the opposite side of the scale from where the final trade was made.
he takes 18 hours to get to norway on his car, it doesn't say driving his car, so I will assume he and his car was flown to Norway in a cargo plane, he stays for 10 hours in Norway, which puts into monday. The plane flight was west, so it was 18 hours plus the differnece in time zones, a rather long flight I might add, and so on Monday he starts the long journey home and arrives back in india next sunday.
#3....he should only give money to the first man and only divide it if he doesn't give him all 6 dollars...
#5....use the 7min hr glass twice and count one mississippi, two mississipi, etc for the last minute...
#4
start both hour glasses at the same time and when the 7 min hour glass finishes, start cooking. when the 11min hr glass finishes, flip it over and cook til it's top empties....that is 15 minutes....4 minutes from the remaining time of the 1st use of the 11, min hr glass + 11 minutes for it's 2nd use.....
Correct.
1) second
#1....overtook the second person you came upon ? or the person in second place ?
#2....as you begin to place the coins on the balance scale, do so one coin at a time per side. as soon as the scale wont balance, you know the coin that is a fraud is on one side or the other. simply remove the previosly used coins before the imbalance, leaving the imbalanced coins with fraud. to determine which side of scale it is on, remove one of the coins from one side and exchange it for another, if the scale balances, the last one you removed is the fraud, if it still doesn't, it is on the opposite side of the scale from where the final trade was made.
You overtake the the person that is in second place.
The answer for #2 is incorrect. You are only allowd to weigh the coins twice.
#3....he should only give money to the first man and only divide it if he doesn't give him all 6 dollars...
I dont exactly understand the second part, but the first part is correct. He should give the 6 dollars to the first man.
#5....exact opposite process of #4's answer.....
This doesn't work. Time is ticking right from the beginning, so it is a bit more complicated.
1) second
True :)
he returned back the following sunday. he must have enjoyed his travel when he is on his way back home.
shoopi wrote:
nameno1had wrote:
#1....overtook the second person you came upon ? or the person in second place ?
#2....as you begin to place the coins on the balance scale, do so one coin at a time per side. as soon as the scale wont balance, you know the coin that is a fraud is on one side or the other. simply remove the previosly used coins before the imbalance, leaving the imbalanced coins with fraud. to determine which side of scale it is on, remove one of the coins from one side and exchange it for another, if the scale balances, the last one you removed is the fraud, if it still doesn't, it is on the opposite side of the scale from where the final trade was made.
You overtake the the person that is in second place.
The answer for #2 is incorrect. You are only allowd to weigh the coins twice.
in my method you wouldnt have two use it more that twice, as long as you put the coins on on at a time....you didnt demand that they had to go on in stacks all at once....
@ shoopi, on #2:
First weighing: weigh two groups of three coins each against each other. If they don't balance, then take the lighter group for the second weighing. If they do balance, take the remaining 3 coins for the second weighing.
Second weighing: Weigh two of the three coins against each other. If one is lighter, you've found it. If they balance, it's the coin you've left out of the balance.
For #2, divide the coins into three piles of three. Weigh two of the stacks and if one is lighter, that pile contains the fake coin; if they are of equal weight, the fraud is in the stack that was not weighed.
Pocket the fair coins and divide up the remaining pile again into three, and place one coin on each end of the balance, and you will know which is the fraud, either if one of the two on the scales is lighter, or if they are equal then the remaining coin must be a fake.
For number 5, you run them both. When the seven-minute timer runs out flip it immediately. When the eleven-minute timer runs out, flip the seven-minute timer again; it will run for four minutes on top of the 11 that have already elapsed, getting you to fifteen.
Heartbeats fluctuate on multiple levels based on multiple variables. However, they generally keep a steady rhythm. More than this, though: in cases where the lack of a heartbeat defines death, the presence of a heartbeat will define life. That's an important and precise dividing line for people who like to keep breathing.
In any case, I think you should sue your dentist for malpractice.
(Name's Bond. James Bond)
It's a grill. I'm trying to draw attention away from the bump on my forehead. It seems to be working, too.
@LoekBergman: I like the riddle, btw!