Later that night, we got a follow-up note from Dr. Wiggins:

   OOPS ... Never give a problem from memory. I awoke at 3 AM and thought - four pieces of rock, not three.


   In the spirit of full disclosure, we already knew that. One of the benefits of being a math teacher is that you begin to build a mental file of all the brain teasers kids try to stump you with. After a while, you can make yourself incredibly obnoxious by blurting out the answers without hearing more than the first few words of the questions. Want to try it for yourself? Highlight the text between the arrows to check your answers.


    • How far can a dog run ...
          answer --> halfway <-- answer

    • Three men plan to share a hotel room ...
          answer --> There is no extra dollar. <-- answer

    • I have two U.S. coins that ...
          answer --> The other coin is a nickel. <-- answer

    • A man rushes his son into the emergency room ...
          answer --> The surgeon is the boy's mother. <-- answer

    • A man is found all alone ...
          answer --> He stood on a block of ice. <-- answer


   To be honest, we were kind of glad for the change in the problem. If the kids were hoping to impress their new friend, they'd have a much better chance of doing so by finding a solution that didn't already exist in their heads or on the Internet. As a result, we sent back this:


   Thanks for the update … but if it’s all the same to you, we’re going to analyze the problem as originally written as well. We know it’s impossible, but so was 42b! (Danger is our middle name.) We’ll let you know when we have something!




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