The following special catch puzzle appeared in the issue of The Weekly Dispatch for All Fools' Day, 1900. It caused considerable amusement; for out of a very large body of competitors, many quite expert, not a single person solved it, though it ran for nearly a month.

" A race between a man and a woman that I happened to witness one All Fools' Day has fixed itself indelibly on my memory. It happened at a country-house, where the gardener and the cook decided to run a race to a point 100 feet straight away and return. I found that the gardener ran 3 feet at every bound and the cook only 2 feet, but then she made three bounds to his two. Now, what was the result of the race?"

A fortnight after publication the editor added the following note: "It has been suggested that perhaps there is a catch in the 'return,' but there is not. The race is to a point 100 feet away and home again—that is, a distance of 200 feet. One correspondent asks whether they take exactly the same time in turning, to which I reply that they do. Another seems to suspect that it is really a conundrum, and that the answer is that 'the result of the race was a (matrimonial) tie.' But I had no such intention. The puzzle is an arithmetical one, as it purports to be."

(In reply to re: Solution? by Chelsea)

Without making assumptions, parse the sentence "I found that the gardener ran 3 feet at every bound and the cook only 2 feet, but then she made three bounds to his two."  Proper English would demand that "she" refers to the gardener, etc.  There is nothing in the sentence to even suggest the other way around.

Also consider that this was (April Fool's) All Fool's Day, and that in 1900 sexual stereotypes were much stronger than today.  Many more would be caught by that, nad I suspect that this is the "joke"

So the answer must be that the female gardener must travel 34 3ft bounds, turn around, and travel 34 back for a total of 68.  In that time, the cook will only travvel 45 1/3 bound of 2 ft each, or 90 2/3 ft.  So the female gardener wiins.

Not the first to suggest this, but I think this is the answer.

 

Posted by Kenny M on 2006-03-02 17:47:42