Research shows that regular brain exercises, such as riddles and puzzles, can help prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Besides, they’re fun to do! If you have a minute, try to figure this one out and post your explanation as a comment. Also, for those of you that need a hint, I’ve posted one as a comment. I’ll put up the answer sometime next week. Let’s see who the real brainiacs of Walden at Chatham Center are!
You are a med student working in a chemistry lab and you need to prop up a beaker of water so that its base is exactly 17″ above the table (don’t worry about why). Besides the beaker, the only objects in the lab are a yardstick and five phone books, at 1″, 3″, 4″, 5″, and 6″ thick each.
How do you arrange the books so that you can prop up the beaker at the correct height?
Hint
If you’re stuck then you’re forgetting something very important. Remember – these are BOOKS, not blocks of wood.
Anyone get this yet? I can’t figure out how the yardstick fits in.
Hey Tricia…I’ll give you another hint. The yardstick is used for measuring height.
Too easy. Stack your phone books and turn pages until you measure 17″ with the yardstick. Bam. Do I get a prize?
First, you put the 6″ book down on the table, then you put the yard stick next to this book and turn pages until part of the book measures 5″, the other part measuring 1″. Then you stack the 5″, 4″, and 3″ books on top of the 5″ side of the 6″ book and voilà ! 17″ above the table.