Puzzle No.10

Paladin

Farmer Bob and farmer Dan were talking.
Bob says "my property is a mile squared".
Dan says "mine is a square mile"
Bob then says "so our properties are identical in *not counting the obvious differences in the atomical makup*(edited!) then".
Is Bobs last statement true or not and why?

I had edited it differently but because of a collaboration of vicious connection problems, and the 60 second flood control the wrong edited post got on nnnnnnggg!!
Sorry.


[This message has been edited by Paladin (edited 04-03-2000).]

SantaHoe

No, Bobs' farm has a scarecrow.

Hmm, well if Bob means that his property is measured one mile from one corner of the square, to the next adjacent corner then since all sides of a square are equal we can say that 1mile x 1mile = 1mile² (Area = L x
Then yes.

But "a mile square" is open to interpretation.

_CreeD_

Yup, down to interpretation.
I'd say no.

I'd take Bob's as a Mile in total around the edges, eg. each side being .25 miles, area being .075sqMiles (damn fractions and real area.....too tired to make it realistic, but you get the picture)
Whereas Dan's is 1mile each side and 1sqMile area.

Monty - the one and only

Maybe we should rename this Paladins puzzle board.....

Then again maybe not




[This message has been edited by Monty - the one and only (edited 03-03-2000).]

the celtic tiger

The way I see it is that Bob is a liar and a cheat. I played a game of blackjack with him once and cleared me out. Anyway, during that game I managed to find out that he is not in fact a farmer but an employee of Bill Gates. HE WORKS FOR MICROSOFT HERE IN DUBLIN. The word on the streets is that it was his idea to monopolise the entire software industry and that it was also his idea to create a united Ireland under British rule. Some say he's the moist powerful man in the world.....but we all know that's not true. The most powerful man in the world is...of course ...the one...the only...GEORGE CLOONEY!

In conclusion...Bob has you all fooled....he owns 63,000Acres of land scattered throughout five continents. He's not a farmer but has set up many cat burning facilities overseas. He's dangerous...don't trust him.

Thank you for your cooperation.

bye

tct

Paladin

Bob is being dealt with.
*BOOM*
Uhh, that wasnt a gunshot it was...uhhh a door slamming. Thats it. A slamming door.
I gotta go clean the carpet now.

Paladin

O ya. Ye dont have it yet, but ye r stumbling in the right direction. It IS a matter of interpretation, not personal but of precise english.

Illkillya

I don't know, but try this:

How quickly can you find out what is unusual about this paragraph? It looks so ordinary that you would think that nothing was wrong with it at all and, in fact, nothing is. But it is unusual. Why? If you study it and think about it you may find out, but I am not going to assist you in any way. You must do it without coaching. No doubt, if you work at it for long, it will dawn on you. Who knows? Go to work and try your skill. Par is about half an hour.

Wyverne

WELL PAL...

IF WE ARE TALKING ABOUT PRECISE ENGLISH.....

it is irrelevant what size the two farms are, they could not be identical by way of the fact that they are simply not the same farm (im prolly wrong on this one)


so bobs last statement is therefor false, for the reason i gave above

---

This is Commander in chief of the USS Esses, signing off.

TwoShedsJackson

The letter 'e', the most common letter in the English language, appears nowhere therein.

Paladin

Precise english not nit picky snively little details!

The answer is: (and this is a distinctly annoyingly american problem btw.)

Their farms are identical in AREA but may be drastically different in shape.

A mile square cannot be anything other than a square in shape.
A square mile is the term for area, and can be ANY shape.

I dont really like this problem myself either but is a bit different.

SantaHoe

Bob then says "so our properties are identical in *area*(edited!) then".

So we were talking about area all along then?

And if you want to be 'nit picky' then I would be correct having said that "No, Bobs' farm has a scarecrow."

TwoShedsJackson

eh Paladin, i was replying to illkillya.

Wyverne

so i was right then?

---

This is Commander in chief of the USS Esses, signing off.

Paladin

I know u were replying to illkillya castor. I was replying to wyv
And no we werent talking about area all along.Im sorry that post was edited that way, cause it wasnt suppused to be. I musta retyped the goddamn edit 5 fu<king times because of flood control, ant then the goddamn modem disconnected! When I reconnected (which too about 10 attempts on esat) I just saw the "this message has been edited...." at the bottom of my post and assumed it was right.

Once again I apologise for this puzzles fvckup

Illkillya

probably my fault for interrupting with the other puzzle.....