Down at the hunting club recently, an intense game of ping-pong was being played out between Lord Pencey and the Earl of Worchestershire. Locked in the fifth set at 20 apiece, Lord Pencey had a proposition for the Earl.

"I say, old chap, this game is getting on, isn't it? We'll miss the scones if this continues much longer. How about we place a little wager to get this over and done with right now?"
"Sounds fine by me, my good man. What do you propose?", replied the Earl of Worchestershire.
"I'll tell you what," retorted Pency, "I'll lay down my bat right now, if you can throw a ping-pong ball so that it will go a short distance, come to a complete stop, and then reverse itself, right back into your hand. But you can't bounce the ball off any object, or tie anything to it. Yes?"
"By jove," chortled the Earl, "That's impossible! If you can do that, I'll happily let you have this game and I'll even make you a nice, hot cup of tea!"
"Well," smiled Pencey, "Here we go..."

How did Lord Pencey manage to show up the Earl of Worchestershire, take the game and enjoy his cuppa?

(In reply to re(2): Dumb solution? by logischer Verstand)

then he was being redundant because he could have said that it travelled in one direction then reversed itself. There's no need to say it came to a complete stop. I thought he said that because he meant that it remained in the same place for some time before returning. If that's what he meant then our answer is wrong because if you think about it, if you throw a ball up in the air, then it's constantly under the influence of gravity and therefore its velocity is always changing. So it would not come to a complete stop for more than an instant. but now we're just arguing semantics.

Posted by Danny on 2004-05-13 17:07:50