From The Sunday Times, 18th August 1996 [link]
Marvo uses a prearranged pack of cards to perform the following trick. Holding the pack face downwards, one by one he would take a card from the top and place it on the bottom, calling out a letter each time so as to spell:
A, C, E, [the next card is an ace, which is placed on the table]
T, W, O, [next card is a 2]
T, H, R, E, E, [next card is a 3]
…
J, A, C, K, [next card is a Jack]
Q, U, E, E, N, [next card is a Queen]
K, I, N, G, [next card is a King]
A, C, E, [next card is an ace]
T, W, O, [next card is a 2]
…
Once he had spelt out the name of the card he would remove the next card from the pack, turn it over and place it face up on the table. Of course it was always the card which he had just spelt out.
In this way he worked through the clubs, then the hearts, then the diamonds and finally the spades, finishing with just the King of spades in his hand.
One day his disgruntled assistant sabotaged his act by secretly cutting the pack. However the first card which Marvo turned over was still an ace, and the the second card was still a two.
What was the next card Marvo turned over?
This puzzle is included in the book Brainteasers (2002). The puzzle text above is taken from the book.
[teaser1770]
Jim Randell 8:53 pm on 20 December 2019 Permalink |
This Python program determines the regular polygons with integer internal angles for 360 divisions (degrees) and 400 divisions (grads). It then finds the common values, and which of those are unique mod 10. It runs in 77ms.
Run: [ @repl.it ]
from enigma import (divisors_pairs, intersect, filter_unique, printf) # record n-gons by internal angles # t is the number of subdivisions in a circle # return map of: <internal angle> -> <number of sides> def ngons(t): r = dict() for (d, n) in divisors_pairs(t, every=1): if n > 2: r[t // 2 - d] = n return r # find n-gons for 360 subdivisions and 400 subdivisions A = ngons(360) B = ngons(400) # find interior angles that match ss = intersect([A.keys(), B.keys()]) # filter them by the units digit ss = filter_unique(ss, (lambda x: x % 10)) # output solution for i in ss.unique: printf("angle = {i} -> (a) {a}-gon, (b) {b}-gon", a=A[i], b=B[i])Solution: (a) Beth’s polygon has 72 sides; (b) Sam’s polygon has 16 sides.
A 72-gon has internal angles measuring 175°. A 16-gon has internal angles measuring 157.5° = 175 grads.
There are 4 numbers which will give regular n-gons for angles expressed in degrees and grads. These are:
Obviously only the last of these is uniquely identified by the final (units) digit.
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GeoffR 8:53 am on 24 December 2019 Permalink |
This programme gives four answers to the constraints in the puzzle.
The first three answers have a common units digit of zero, and the fourth answer has a unique digit of five, which provides the answer to the puzzle. Merry Xmas!
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