Hello guzzlers,
This week’s puzzle is purloined (with permission) from the recently-published prime paperback, Professor Povey’s Perplexing Problems.
The book is a collection of pre-university maths and physics conundrums, chosen by Oxford university engineering professor Thomas Povey. He writes that the questions “are devised to encourage curiosity and playfulness, and many are of the standard expected in some university entrance tests.” It’s great fun and quite challenging!
The book is mostly concerned with physics, but some of the puzzles are mathematical, such as this one that he devised himself.
I like it because you are literally throwing money at the problem.
The coin and the chessboard
A coin of diameter 1 is thrown on an infinitely large chessboard with squares of side 2.
What is the chance that the coin lands on a position touching both black and white?
For clarification: an infinitely large chessboard is a chessboard that goes on forever an all directions, and the coin lands on one of its faces.
Have a go at the problem and I’ll post the solution on the blog later.
Professor Povey’s Perplexing Problems: Pre-University Physics and Maths Puzzles with Solutions by Thomas Povey is out now.
I post a puzzle here on a Monday every two weeks. I also blog about maths for the Guardian. I’m on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and here’s my personal website.
If you know of any great puzzles that you would like me to set here, get in touch.
