Solve Enjoyable Enigmas with Mr.E's Challenge

  • Thread starter Enigman
  • Start date
In summary: Four princes approach the king vying for the hand of the princess. In order to choose the best among the four suitors the king and the princess arrange a test: the suitors are brought to a large rectangular hall. The floor is covered with a carpet all over except at the corners- where there are four squares of bare floor and the suitors are told to stand at these corner. Each suitor takes a corner and stands there while the princess stands at the center of the hall. The king then proclaims the prince who without leaving their respective squares shall put a ring on the princess's hand will be declared to be the bridegroom of his daughter and the heir to Enigmania. No ropes or rods are
  • #316
You don't need anything except the bottle and egg. No equipments at all!
 
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  • #317
Sorry zoob et al. I am BORRRRRED...
to put the egg in the bottle you create a low pressure in the bottle. Now do the opposite. Take a deep breath and think...
 
  • #318
Blow!
And out I bow.
 
  • #319
The trick is to blow into the bottle when it is inverted. The burst of air bounces the egg before it reseals the bottle. This has two effects-
1)It as you say it increases the pressure inside the bottle.
2)(More important IMO) Creates low pressure at the mouth of the bottle by Bernoulli's equation.

An open ended question-

A black man, dressed in black, is crossing a road. He's blind and deaf. A truck is speeding towards him at great speed, with its lights turned off (probably a crazy driver). The starlight is very faint. The street lamps are also off and there's no moonlight. When the truck is about to hit the man, the driver hits the brakes and manages to stop just a few centimeters from him. How?
 
  • #320
Er...
is Sunlight considered to be starlight?
 
  • #321
Enigman said:
Er...
is Sunlight considered to be starlight?

Technically the sun is a star but not in the context of the puzzle.
 
  • #322
Well, it was a day or there were lightning flashes or the driver had to pee or there was a helicopter overhead with search-lights or the pedestrian was wearing glow-in-the-dark (er...phosphorescent?) clothes or it was the ALIENS!
 
  • #323
The answer-
Yes it was day.
 
  • #324
Well, you did mention open-ended...
:biggrin:
 
  • #325
You forgot night vision goggles :-p
 
  • #326
Aliens trump all.
Alien-Guy.jpg
 
  • #327
A physics enigma-

Two identical spheres receive identical amounts of thermal energy, the heat transfer occurring so quickly that none is lost to the surroundings. If they begin at the same temperature, but one is on a table and the other is suspended by a string, will the spheres still have the same temperature immediately after the quick addition of thermal energy?
 
  • #328
Alternate solution: The man was standing at the edge of the parking spot the truck was driving to
 
  • #329
Office_Shredder said:
Alternate solution: The man was standing at the edge of the parking spot the truck was driving to
That won't work...he was crossing a road.
 
  • #330
Trucks can park on the side of the street though
 
  • #331
The blind man sings.. Loudly. :p
 
  • #332
Gad said:
The blind man sings.. Loudly. :p

He's deaf. Deaf people don't sing.
 
  • #333
Finer point about man crossing road-
I added the bit about the starlight to make the problem harder. Starlight does reach us during the day although it is overpowered by the sun.
Solve this one. It is kinda hard, but if you solve it you will feel really smart.(For a day that is :biggrin:)

Two identical spheres receive identical amounts of thermal energy, the heat transfer occurring so quickly that none is lost to the surroundings. If they begin at the same temperature, but one is on a table and the other is suspended by a string, will the spheres still have the same temperature immediately after the quick addition of thermal energy?
 
  • #334
consciousness said:
A physics enigma-

Two identical spheres receive identical amounts of thermal energy, the heat transfer occurring so quickly that none is lost to the surroundings. If they begin at the same temperature, but one is on a table and the other is suspended by a string, will the spheres still have the same temperature immediately after the quick addition of thermal energy?

Yes, they will have the same temperature immediately after the quick addition of thermal energy -- a transfer that was such that no heat was exchanged with the surrounding environment.

This assumes that the string and the table are part of the environment, and thus were not involved in any heat transfer. This includes any possible ionization effects: the string and table are part of the environment and were not affected by the heat transfer at all -- at least not yet.

This neglects any quantum effects of the different configurations, which wouldn't be measurable anyway if the spheres are at all larger than microscopic.

This also neglects any differences caused by general relativity (as opposed to Newtonian gravity), which wouldn't even come close to being measurable assuming the these are regular old objects, here on Earth.

And lastly it assumes that none of thermal energy is transferred to the surroundings via thermal vibrations -- again, no energy is transferred to the surroundings, and that includes the string and table.

Edit: Oh, and of course I don't mean that the spheres will have the same temperature that they started with. I mean they will have the same temperature as each other.
 
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  • #335
consciousness said:
Two identical spheres receive identical amounts of thermal energy, the heat transfer occurring so quickly that none is lost to the surroundings. If they begin at the same temperature, but one is on a table and the other is suspended by a string, will the spheres still have the same temperature immediately after the quick addition of thermal energy?

collinsmark said:
Yes, they will have the same temperature immediately after the quick addition of thermal energy -- a transfer that was such that no heat was exchanged with the surrounding environment.

This assumes that the string and the table are part of the environment, and thus were not involved in any heat transfer. This includes any possible ionization effects: the string and table are part of the environment and were not affected by the heat transfer at all -- at least not yet.

This neglects any quantum effects of the different configurations, which wouldn't be measurable anyway if the spheres are at all larger than microscopic.

This also neglects any differences caused by general relativity (as opposed to Newtonian gravity), which wouldn't even come close to being measurable assuming the these are regular old objects, here on Earth.

And lastly it assumes that none of thermal energy is transferred to the surroundings via thermal vibrations -- again, no energy is transferred to the surroundings, and that includes the string and table.

Edit: Oh, and of course I don't mean that the spheres will have the same temperature that they started with. I mean they will have the same temperature as each other.

That last post also assumed that the two spheres were identical at the time the heat transfer, and at the time temperature measurements were taking place.

But now I think I see where this riddle is going.

I think the riddle meant to say, "the spheres are not ideal sphere's. Instead they are practical spheres that are not completely rigid. And they are identical before being placed on the string or the table, but not necessarily after."

If that were the case then the sphere hanging on the string would tend to "stretch out" ever so slightly, while the sphere on the table would tend to compress upon itself every so slightly. Thus the spheres wouldn't technically be identical anymore at the time they were hanging from a string or sitting on a table.

In that case, the sphere on the table would be slightly denser, containing a slightly larger energy density, and be slightly hotter.
 
  • #336
collinsmark, this is a very practical riddle. Nowhere in the problem statement have the spheres been called "ideal". You have to take practical considerations into mind while solving this one. You are on the right track, almost.
I don't understand the last part about compression though. Why would it compress? I think you are ignoring a very practical consideration here.
 
  • #337
I have not been contributing enough riddles, so I went to the library today and got a book.

Here's one:

"An ordinary cyclist travels up and down a hill. Going up, she maintains a constant speed of 10 mph. It takes her 1 hour to get to the top. Assuming the hill is symmetric, what speed must she maintain on the way going down if she wishes to average 20 mph?"
 
  • #338
∞?
 
  • #339
consciousness, I have trouble reconciling "two identical spheres" and "these spheres are not perfect spheres".
 
  • #340
Your light switch is on the other side of the room from your bed. However, you make a bet that you can turn the light off and jump in bed before the room gets dark. No timers are involved. How do you win this bet without violating SR?
 
  • #341
Boomerang Ball:

You throw a ball as hard as you can. It doesn't hit anything, and no strings or rubber bands are attached to it, yet, it comes right back to you. How can this be?
 
  • #342
You are standing on a hard concrete floor and you have no cushioning to use. You bet someone you can drop a raw egg 4 feet without it breaking. You promise you won't even drop it on your feet. How do you win this bet?
 
  • #343
zoobyshoe said:
Boomerang Ball:

You throw a ball as hard as you can. It doesn't hit anything, and no strings or rubber bands are attached to it, yet, it comes right back to you. How can this be?

Is there not a word for 'vertical relative to Earth's surface'? In my language there's vertical, and there's this word which means vertical relative to Earth's surface..
 
  • #344
Gad said:
Is there not a word for 'vertical relative to Earth's surface'? In my language there's vertical, and there's this word which means vertical relative to Earth's surface..

...Up?
 
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  • #345
Lol :smile:
 
  • #346
Gad said:
Is there not a word for 'vertical relative to Earth's surface'? In my language there's vertical, and there's this word which means vertical relative to Earth's surface..
In physics any line that is perpendicular to a given surface is "normal" to that surface. The word "up" would have done just fine, though I wish it hadn't been blurted out without spoilers.
 
  • #347
zoobyshoe said:
I have not been contributing enough riddles, so I went to the library today and got a book.

Here's one:

"An ordinary cyclist travels up and down a hill. Going up, she maintains a constant speed of 10 mph. It takes her 1 hour to get to the top. Assuming the hill is symmetric, what speed must she maintain on the way going down if she wishes to average 20 mph?"
teleportation allowed?

zoobyshoe said:
Your light switch is on the other side of the room from your bed. However, you make a bet that you can turn the light off and jump in bed before the room gets dark. No timers are involved. How do you win this bet without violating SR?
use a torch? It was a day?

zoobyshoe said:
You are standing on a hard concrete floor and you have no cushioning to use. You bet someone you can drop a raw egg 4 feet without it breaking. You promise you won't even drop it on your feet. How do you win this bet?
Er, catch it before it falls?
 
  • #348
My question was somewhat ambiguous. I have edited it now.

Two identical metal spheres receive identical amounts of thermal energy, the heat transfer occurring so quickly that none is lost to the surroundings. If they begin at the same temperature, but one is on a table and the other is suspended by a string, will the spheres still have the same temperature immediately after the quick addition of thermal energy?

I have another answer for raw egg-
Concrete floors aren't so easily broken!

Cyclist-
Its not possible!:eek:

Hint for spheres-
Metals appreciably expand on heating
 

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  • #349
consciousness said:
My question was somewhat ambiguous. I have edited it now.

Two identical metal spheres receive identical amounts of thermal energy, the heat transfer occurring so quickly that none is lost to the surroundings. If they begin at the same temperature, but one is on a table and the other is suspended by a string, will the spheres still have the same temperature immediately after the quick addition of thermal energy?
[...]
Hint for spheres-
Metals appreciably expand on heating
Assuming now that both spheres maintain identical densities with respect to each other, and have positive thermal expansion coefficients (unlike zirconium tungstate), then the sphere on the string will be the hotter of the two.

Conservation of energy is at play here. The average height of the sphere on the table will rise up a bit, while the sphere on the string will be lowered. The difference in potential energy equates to work done by a heat engine, essentially. The end result is, for the moment at least, the sphere that gains potential energy is the colder of the two, meaning that the sphere on the string is hotter than the one on that table, since the sphere on the string lost potential energy and the sphere on the table gained potential energy in the process.
 
  • #350
collinsmark said:
Assuming now that both spheres maintain identical densities with respect to each other, and have positive thermal expansion coefficients (unlike zirconium tungstate), then the sphere on the string will be the hotter of the two.

Conservation of energy is at play here. The average height of the sphere on the table will rise up a bit, while the sphere on the string will be lowered. The difference in potential energy equates to work done by a heat engine, essentially. The end result is, for the moment at least, the sphere that gains potential energy is the colder of the two, meaning that the sphere on the string is hotter than the one on that table, since the sphere on the string lost potential energy and the sphere on the table gained potential energy in the process.

Correct. :biggrin:
 

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