Moon, June, Spoonerize; Take the A Track Train?; Blank verse; Minimizing your edges

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER e^{5 +} 5²  SERVED

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

In last week’s Puzzleria! comments section, commenter David responded to our long and Short(z) riddles with three riddles of his own. All three confounded us (until he mercifully hammered us over the head with hints).

David’s third riddle, here paraphrased and made a bit easier, was:

What is a mathematical term, in the plural, that could also be a description of male conjoined twins, in certain circumstances, for example, on a sunny beach?

The answer is a trisyllabic nine-letter word. (To see it, refer to David’s June 25 at 9:18 AM post in last week’s Comments section.) 

David’s answer reminded me of a mnemonic device I devised back in high school trigonometry class. I was having trouble recalling which ratios of which sides of a right triangle corresponded to the sine, cosine and tangent functions of their angles: sin 0, cos 0, tan 0, where 0 = the Greek letter theta. (Please imagine horizontal lines bisecting these oval characters, thereby rendering them as thetas.)

The sine (abbreviated “sin”) of an angle theta (0), for example, is the ratio of the side Opposite the angle to the Hypotenuse.

Thus: sin 0 = O/H

The cosine (cos) of 0 is the ratio of the side Adjacent the angle 0 to the Hypotenuse. So, cos 0 = A/H

The tangent (tan) of 0 is the ratio of the side Opposite the angle 0 to the side Adjacent the angle. So, tan 0 = O/A

So, to recall these three functions I thought:

We might respond to someone committing a sin(e) by exclaiming, OH!

A variant spelling of “cozy” is “cosy.” One who is cos(y) might respond by contentedly sighing, AH!

We might find a tan(gent) luxuriating on a desert OAsis.

In other geometric activity, the excellent “Futility Closet” blog recently ran a “Cubic Route” puzzle. Not too tough, but fun enough. The puzzle and answer can be found here. The puzzle, sans answer, is reprinted below:

You are planning to make a wire skeleton of a cube by arranging 12 equal lengths of wire and soldering them at the corners.

It occurs to you that you might be able to simplify the job by using one or more longer lengths of wire and bending them into right angles at the cube’s corners.

If you adopt that plan, what is the minimum number of corners where soldering will still be necessary?

We created a twist on this fine puzzle – one that could well include hands-on solving with chalk, paper and scissors, if you wish:

Piggyback Futility Closet Slice:

Minimizing your edges

You are planning to make a hollow cube by taping 6 one-inch squares of cardboard together.

It occurs to you that you might be able to simplify the job by cutting a six-square-inch pattern from a piece of cardboard, folding it into a cube, and taping together any edges that are not already folded at right angles to form an edge.

If you adopt that plan, what is the minimum number of edges where taping will still be necessary?

After scissoring-out and folding several six-square-inch cardboard patterns, only to achieve identical minimum-number-of-edges results, I grabbed a piece of cardboard from the bathroom, did some scissoring, and reduced by one my minimum number of edges in which taping was necessary. I could have grabbed a piece of cardboard from the kitchen that also would have worked.

What cardboard item did I grab from the bathroom?

(Note: The the sides of the cube I formed from the cardboard I grabbed from the bathroom are actually a bit larger than one inch square. The sides are just shy of 1.4 inches square.) 

Now let us shift from a geometrical puzzle to a mere metrical puzzle... metrical feet, that is:    

Wireless Trisyllabic Slice:

Blank Verse

I wrote the verse below many years ago as I listened to my portable radio while studying after-hours in an empty third-floor room of my college’s Quadrangle. (Okay, okay. I know. “Quadrangle” is geometrical, not merely metrical.) 

The two words in the blanks each contain three syllables – and ten and nine letters, respectively. The rhyme scheme is abab (not ABBA, or ABACAB):

My Radio

Two dials has my radio: One, volume; Two, fine-tuning,

But when I turn the first one up, damn thing begins __________!

So then the second dial I turn, and finest tunes are all I hear.

But if I click the first one off, my radio shall _________!

What words should fill in the two blanks?

Too easy? Then perhaps the puzzles on this week’s menu will draw a few blank expressions:

MENU

 

Vinylla Sublime Slice:

Take the A Track Train?

Audio cassettes and 8-track audio cartridges competed with vinyl records as a recorded music format in the late 1960s, 1970s and into the 1980s.

The title of a best-selling album during that period might have been construed as a subliminal advertisement for the 8-track and cassette formats over the vinyl record format. (By “subliminal” is meant that the message presumably promoting cassettes and 8-track cartridges was somehow camouflaged within the wording of the album title.)

What is this album title? What is the camouflaged message?

Prisoners Of Our Own Device Slice:

Moon, June, Spoonerize

Name a device (in two words, a short word followed by a longer one) that might eliminate the need to comb through parking lots or sofa cushions before you can start your car.

“Spoonerize” those words (for example, if you spoonerize “puzzle mart,” it becomes “muzzle part”) to name a profession, in one word, that involves combs.

What are this device and this profession?

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!

Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup, Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)

Please post your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not give the puzzle answers away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Friday.

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Thank you.