Editors Pick

PAGE 15

Problematics | In the name of Einstein, match the following

editors pick

Published on Mar 06, 2023 03:54 PM IST

Creating a full-length Einstein puzzle, I found, can be an exhausting but ultimately rewarding exercise. Here you go.

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | The price of mixing apples and oranges

It may be fine to compare apples with oranges, but you should be wary about mixing the two, except perhaps in a fruit salad. Here’s why.

editors pick

Updated on Feb 28, 2023 08:45 AM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | Untold story about a hare and a tortoise

This week, one of the two puzzles may include some information you don’t really need. Good luck!

editors pick

Published on Feb 20, 2023 01:09 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | A gift for packing things correctly

This week’s puzzles are somewhat less challenging, but interesting nevertheless. It is, incidentally, a landmark week of sorts: the 25th in an unbroken series of puzzling weeks.

editors pick

Updated on Feb 14, 2023 08:05 AM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | Playing cards, words and a classroom game

Have you ever created something, like a poem or a word game, only to find that someone else has created something similar? This week's puzzles are one of those.

editors pick

Updated on Feb 10, 2023 09:04 AM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | More tricks to play on impressionable friends

Welcome to week 23 of Problematics! Here are this week's puzzles, admittedly not my own.

editors pick

Updated on Jan 30, 2023 04:57 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | The puzzling truth about cats and dogs

For any Monday’s puzzles, please send in your solutions by noon on Friday the same week. This will also be mentioned in the footnote every week. Let's get solving!

editors pick

Published on Jan 23, 2023 07:04 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | Think of a number, repeat and recycle

This week's fare is relatively simple, although the puzzles are not exactly sitters.

editors pick

Published on Jan 17, 2023 03:43 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | Watch your hands and how they move

Ignore the second hand and concern yourselves only with the hour and minute hands. Like last week’s Christmas tree puzzle, this one too comes from something I had presented to readers 30 years ago.

editors pick

Published on Jan 10, 2023 03:34 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

How long does it take to set up an Xmas tree?

I felt the puzzle would work better if I adapted it for readers who are three decades younger. I have changed the form of the original but retained the content.

editors pick

Published on Jan 02, 2023 01:24 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | The mathematics of planning a family

Here's week 18 of Problematics.

editors pick

Updated on Dec 26, 2022 03:13 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | A puzzler’s guide to matchmaking

Here's week 17 of Problematics.

editors pick

Updated on Dec 20, 2022 02:40 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | Flight of fancy: Around the world in how many days?

When someone identifies an error in someone else’s puzzle, it is called “cooking” the puzzle. Here's a simplified adaptation for readers of Problematics!

editors pick

Updated on Dec 12, 2022 05:24 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | Which game is smarter, poker or teen patti?

The Hollywood caper The Sting (1973) includes a memorable depiction of a poker game, in which a lot of cheating is going on. This too is about poker, and the rules of the game now may help you warm up for The Sting later.

editors pick

Updated on Dec 06, 2022 09:07 AM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | How the crow flies between World Cup football fans

The football World Cup provides the ideal occasion to release a puzzle that I had so far been holding on to. It’s not about football, but involves fans of the game. And it’s not extremely difficult, but it’s fun when you figure out how to solve it.

editors pick

Published on Nov 28, 2022 01:25 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | World Cup goals set on your table

The World Cup is an occasion we cannot ignore. I hope you enjoy solving the following football-related puzzles as much as I enjoyed creating them.

editors pick

Updated on Nov 22, 2022 01:16 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | Play Wordle with these movie titles

Neither of this week’s puzzles is exceptionally tough, but one will require harder work than the other. That one is not mathematical, but a word puzzle that also requires some knowledge of Hollywood:

editors pick

Published on Nov 15, 2022 12:24 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | The weight of a bulldog and friends

The following kind of puzzle is one involving two equations and three variables, whose values you need not determine while getting to the answers you are looking for.

editors pick

Published on Nov 07, 2022 02:27 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | One step at a time on Metro escalator

It would be a stretch to describe what follows as an original puzzle, but I have tinkered with a couple of existing forms of puzzles and merged them into one using my own variables.

editors pick

Updated on Oct 31, 2022 03:02 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | Poker cards with a dash of chemistry

This week’s puzzles remain mildly challenging, like most of the previous ones.

editors pick

Published on Oct 25, 2022 02:55 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | From Wonderland, without Alice

Apart from his stories, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, created a number of delightful puzzles, one of which I have loosely adapted for you.

editors pick

Published on Oct 17, 2022 03:44 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | Once upon a time in the wheels

There is a gem of a puzzle hidden in old cinema shots of a moving stagecoach.

editors pick

Published on Oct 10, 2022 12:34 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | Operation dessert mix

This week, there are only three elements and still no compulsion, but I give you A, B and C all the same. I picked these words out of three different dictionaries. Here are the puzzles:

editors pick

Updated on Oct 03, 2022 01:45 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | Spot the cheetahs at the roundtable

This puzzle involves eight big cats released into a national park.

editors pick

Published on Sep 26, 2022 12:42 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | Scores to settle on cricket pitch

This week on, everyone who solved one or both of last week’s puzzles gets acknowledged here, in the online version of Problematics, while the print version lists those who solved both. Here are this week's puzzles:

editors pick

Updated on Sep 19, 2022 06:43 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | Births and dates with new puzzles

We are familiar with mathematical tricks in which you think of a number and I tell you what it is. In this variation, let’s use dates instead of numbers.

editors pick

Updated on Sep 12, 2022 12:08 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics | When nobody gets to work from home

Can’t wait for your next article in Problematics, Sunaina Shivrain tells me from Faridabad. Mondays will be less mundane, writes Nupur Joshi from Faridabad. Thank you for your response, and let’s keep this going. This week’s puzzles coming up:

editors pick

Updated on Sep 05, 2022 04:13 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

Problematics I Let the puzzles, games begin

Every week, we bring you one or more mildly challenging puzzles, which means they are neither too easy nor too hard

We launch today with both kinds of puzzles, with more to follow in the weeks to come. (iStock Photo)

editors pick

Updated on Sep 05, 2022 12:26 PM IST

ByKabir Firaque

India’s 1st CEC carried out a ‘great, fateful experiment’, writes Ashok Lavasa

Sukumar Sen, who took over as the first CEC on March 21, 1950, was given the herculean task of conducting the first election in a country

Sukumar Sen, India’s first chief election commissioner and conducted the first general elections of Independent India in 1951-52.(Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)

Story of the lions that form India’s national emblem

The national emblem is considered as the symbol of authority of the government and all official communications have the state emblem on them

The emblem is the graphic representation of the Lion Capital that originally graced the top of the Ashok Stambh or Ashoka Pillar at Sarnath. It has the national motto, Satyamev Jayate (truth alone triumphs), written below it.(HTPhoto)

Editors Pick

Creating a full-length Einstein puzzle, I found, can be an exhausting but ultimately rewarding exercise. Here you go.

It may be fine to compare apples with oranges, but you should be wary about mixing the two, except perhaps in a fruit salad. Here’s why.

This week, one of the two puzzles may include some information you don’t really need. Good luck!

This week’s puzzles are somewhat less challenging, but interesting nevertheless. It is, incidentally, a landmark week of sorts: the 25th in an unbroken series of puzzling weeks.

Have you ever created something, like a poem or a word game, only to find that someone else has created something similar? This week's puzzles are one of those.

Welcome to week 23 of Problematics! Here are this week's puzzles, admittedly not my own.

For any Monday’s puzzles, please send in your solutions by noon on Friday the same week. This will also be mentioned in the footnote every week. Let's get solving!

This week's fare is relatively simple, although the puzzles are not exactly sitters.

Ignore the second hand and concern yourselves only with the hour and minute hands. Like last week’s Christmas tree puzzle, this one too comes from something I had presented to readers 30 years ago.

I felt the puzzle would work better if I adapted it for readers who are three decades younger. I have changed the form of the original but retained the content.

Here's week 18 of Problematics.

Here's week 17 of Problematics.

When someone identifies an error in someone else’s puzzle, it is called “cooking” the puzzle. Here's a simplified adaptation for readers of Problematics!

The Hollywood caper The Sting (1973) includes a memorable depiction of a poker game, in which a lot of cheating is going on. This too is about poker, and the rules of the game now may help you warm up for The Sting later.

The football World Cup provides the ideal occasion to release a puzzle that I had so far been holding on to. It’s not about football, but involves fans of the game. And it’s not extremely difficult, but it’s fun when you figure out how to solve it.

The World Cup is an occasion we cannot ignore. I hope you enjoy solving the following football-related puzzles as much as I enjoyed creating them.

Neither of this week’s puzzles is exceptionally tough, but one will require harder work than the other. That one is not mathematical, but a word puzzle that also requires some knowledge of Hollywood:

The following kind of puzzle is one involving two equations and three variables, whose values you need not determine while getting to the answers you are looking for.

It would be a stretch to describe what follows as an original puzzle, but I have tinkered with a couple of existing forms of puzzles and merged them into one using my own variables.

This week’s puzzles remain mildly challenging, like most of the previous ones.

Apart from his stories, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, created a number of delightful puzzles, one of which I have loosely adapted for you.

There is a gem of a puzzle hidden in old cinema shots of a moving stagecoach.

This week, there are only three elements and still no compulsion, but I give you A, B and C all the same. I picked these words out of three different dictionaries. Here are the puzzles:

This puzzle involves eight big cats released into a national park.

This week on, everyone who solved one or both of last week’s puzzles gets acknowledged here, in the online version of Problematics, while the print version lists those who solved both. Here are this week's puzzles:

We are familiar with mathematical tricks in which you think of a number and I tell you what it is. In this variation, let’s use dates instead of numbers.

Can’t wait for your next article in Problematics, Sunaina Shivrain tells me from Faridabad. Mondays will be less mundane, writes Nupur Joshi from Faridabad. Thank you for your response, and let’s keep this going. This week’s puzzles coming up:

Every week, we bring you one or more mildly challenging puzzles, which means they are neither too easy nor too hard

Sukumar Sen, who took over as the first CEC on March 21, 1950, was given the herculean task of conducting the first election in a country

The national emblem is considered as the symbol of authority of the government and all official communications have the state emblem on them

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