Mathematical recreations and essays . nting Problems. The first I will mention is a littlepuzzle which I bought some years ago and which was describedas the Great Northern Puzzle. It is typical of a good manyproblems connected with the shunting of trains, and though itrests on a most improbable hypothesis, I give it as a specimenof its kind. The puzzle shows a railway, DEF, with two sidings, DBAand FGAf connected at A. The portion of the rails at Awhich is common to the two sidings is long enough to permitof a single wagon, like P or Q, running in or out of it; but istoo short to contain the w
Mathematical recreations and essays . nting Problems. The first I will mention is a littlepuzzle which I bought some years ago and which was describedas the Great Northern Puzzle. It is typical of a good manyproblems connected with the shunting of trains, and though itrests on a most improbable hypothesis, I give it as a specimenof its kind. The puzzle shows a railway, DEF, with two sidings, DBAand FGAf connected at A. The portion of the rails at Awhich is common to the two sidings is long enough to permitof a single wagon, like P or Q, running in or out of it; but istoo short to contain the whole of an engine, like R. Hence, if 70 GEOMETRICAL RECREATIONS [CH. IV an engine runs up one siding, such as DBA, it must come backthe same way. Initially a small block of wood, P, coloured to representa wagon, is placed at 5; a similar block, Q, is placed at G; anda longer block of wood, R, representing an engine, is placed atE. The problem is to use the engine R to interchange thewagons P and Q, without allowing any flying Another shunting puzzle, on sale in the streets in 1905,under the name of the Chifu-Chemulpo Puzzle, is made asfollows. A loop-line £GE connects two points B and £ on arailway track AF, which is supposed blocked at both ends, asshown in the diagram. In the model, the track AF is 9 incheslong, AB = EF^ If inches, and -4^ = jPZ = BC^DE = l inch.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjec, booksubjectastrology
