Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Puzzles Part 2
Well no one seemed to look at the first puzzle (from Stargate Atlantis by the way) and as NotElon pointed out the second problem is a topological impossibility. However, me and some fellow engineers found a valid solution that involves no crossing lines. We decided to electrify the gas and water lines into the house that otherwise would not have been able to get power. Now you may say but the gas lines are already electrified (to prevent corrosion which is why you should never ground to your gas piping), well yes they are, we are just raising the voltage a bit. Also, once the water gets into the house you will want to have some sort of ceramic length of pipe sufficiently long to prevent the voltage form arcing through the water, or your morning wake up shower may be a little extra jolting.
Heck, once you're doing that, why stop there? You may as well mix the gas and water lines and just stick a centrifuge or some other filtering device on the house end to separate them out again.
ReplyDeleteIt was kind of hard to reconstruct your first puzzle, as the numbers in your picture appear to be written in alien.
ReplyDeletewell notElon it may be in alien however my explanation of what it is was clear.
ReplyDeleteWell it sounded like you were describing a magic square, but since you stated the the center stone was fixed, and you wished to know if there were solutions involving other stones in the middle, I assumed it was a different puzzle.
ReplyDeletewell as long as the Lump and friends are taking this abstract puzzle into the real world. I don't think your solution is valid. You need first to invent a pipe that can carry both electricity and gas in 2 dimensions, a challenge!
ReplyDeleteI searched the internet for the puzzle. It is apparently the Lo Shu Magic Square. There is a trivial proof that the only solutions occur when the number "5" is at the ceter of the puzzle.
ReplyDelete