Hi guzzlers,
Today I’ve selected four puzzles about chickens, an animal which appears with curious frequency in the history of puzzles.
1. The animal’s first appearance is in one of the oldest known maths books, the Zhang Qiujian Suanjing, which dates from around 470CE in China. The following question is the earliest known example of a problem involving the purchase of 100 winged animals for 100 currency units, which occupied 100s of mathematicians for 100s of years.
If cocks cost 5 qian each, hens cost 3 qian each and chicks are three for a qian, how many cocks, hens and chicks do I buy if I buy 100 of them altogether for exactly 100 qian.
2. In the middle of the twentieth century the following teaser became a classic:
If a hen and a half lays an egg and a half in a day and a half, how many eggs do half a dozen hens lay in half a dozen days?
3. A well known question in the US asks what is 3/7 chicken, 2/3 cat and 2/4 goat? I have come up with a British version:
What is 2/7 chicken, 2/12 Essex warbler and 3/8 terrapin?
4. The challenge in the final question is first to read it in one breath, without bursting out laughing, or bursting into tears. It is deliberately confusing but to me also rather wonderful. The ‘Problem for poultry farmers’ appeared in 1940 in Eureka, the journal of the Cambridge University Mathematical Society. Eureka has featured the work of many eminent mathematicians. Indeed, this puzzle followed an article by Paul Dirac on quantum theory.
The chicken was twice as old when when the day before yesterday was to-morrow to‑day was as far from Sunday as to-day will be when the day after to-morrow is yesterday as it was when when to-morrow will be to-day when the day before yesterday is to-morrow yesterday will be as far from Thursday as yesterday was when to-morrow was to-day when the day after to-morrow was yesterday.
On what day was the chicken hatched out?
Yes, there is no punctuation in that sentence. But read it carefully and you will see that it is saying the chicken was twice as old on X as it was on Y. Once you work out which day is X and which is Y, the answer *should* be clear...
I’ll be back at 5pm UK time with the solutions.
UPDATE: The solutions can now be read here.
NO SPOILERS PLEASE. Talk about your favourite poultry dishes.
Finally, since we are on the endlessly fascinating subject of chickens and puzzles, can you guess why my latest children’s book, Football School Season 2, features a hapless chicken in a Brazil kit?
I set a puzzle here every two weeks on a Monday. Send me your email if you want me to alert you each time I post a new one. I’m always on the look-out for great puzzles. If you would like to suggest one, email me.
My latest book is Football School Season 2, the follow-up to Football School, a book series aimed at 7-12-year-olds which TalkSPORT called “a Horrible Histories for football.” The new book explains why every stadium has a vomitory, the physics of why footballs are NOT round and which international goalkeeper used to pee on the pitch before penalty shoot-outs. As well as lots of maths, English, history, geography and more. The perfect gift for a football-mad boy or girl! Info, activity sheets and more at footballschool.co.
