You can see three sides of each of two dice, and notice that the total number of pips showing is a perfect cube.

What are the numbers of pips on each face that you see?

The problem tells us that we can see three sides. However, it doesn't tell us if by "visible" it's meant that we look at all three sides at once. If you redefine it, you could say that we see three sides of a cube while we are allowed to look at it from all sides. One side is resting on the surface on which the cube lies, the other two sides could be covered by tape for example.

In this setup there is another solution.
The only cube to which the sides of the two dices can add up, is 27.
Either it's 15+12 like in the previous solutions or it's 13+14.
After redefinition of the problem, one dice can show 6,4 and 3 (if the dice sits on the 1 and 2 and 5 are covered and therefore not visible). The other dice shows 6,5 and 3.

Posted by abc on 2003-09-16 10:51:54