#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250606
This week the #puzzle is: Can You Squeeze the Bubbles? #circles #geometry #area #minimize (Link at the bottom.) Draw a unit circle (i.e., a circle with radius 1). Then draw another unit circle whose center is not inside the first one. Then draw a third unit circle whose center is not inside either of the […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/06/10/thisweeksfiddler-20250606/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250530
This week the #puzzle is: Can You Weave the Web? #geometry #trigonometry #probability (Link at the bottom.) A spider weaves a web within a unit square (i.e., a square with side length 1) in the following haphazard manner: First, the spider picks two points at random inside the square. In particular, it picks the points […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/06/03/thisweeksfiddler-20250530/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250523
This week the #puzzle is: How Long Is the River? #probability (Link at the bottom.) … a phenomenon known as a “river”, where spaces between words diagonally align from one line of text to the next. Before getting to rivers, let’s figure out where spaces are likely to appear in the (fictional) Fiddlish language, which […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/05/27/thisweeksfiddler-20250523/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250516
This week the #puzzle is: Can You Permeate the Pyramid? Consider the following figure, which shows 16 points arranged in a rhombus shape and connected to their neighbors by edges. How many distinct paths are there from the top point to the bottom along the edges such that: – You never visit the same point […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/05/20/thisweeksfiddler-20250516/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250509
This week the #puzzle is: Can You Sweep the Series? #probability Let p represent the probability the Celtics win any given game in the [best-of-seven] series. You should assume that p is constant (which means there’s no home-court advantage) and that games are independent. For certain values of p, the likeliest outcome is indeed that […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/05/13/thisweeksfiddler-20250509/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250502
This week the #puzzle is: How Many Rides Can You Reserve? #probabilities #random I was recently a guest at Disney World, which has a new system called “Lightning Lane” for reserving rides in advance—for a fee, of course. By purchasing “Lightning Lane Multi Pass,” you can reserve three of the many rides in a park, […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/05/06/thisweeksfiddler-20250502/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250425
This week the #puzzle is: Can You See Between the Trees? #geometry You are at the point (0, 0) on the coordinate plane. There is a tree at each point with nonnegative integer coordinates, such as (5, 6), (0, 7), and (9, 1). The trees are very thin, so that they only obstruct trees that […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/04/29/thisweeksfiddler-20250425/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250418
This week the #puzzle is: Can You Throw the Hammer? #probabilities #game You and your opponent are competing in a golf match. On any given hole you play, each of you has a 50 percent chance of winning the hole (and a zero percent chance of tying). That said, scorekeeping in this match is a […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/04/22/thisweeksfiddler-20250418/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250411
This week the question is: Can You Grow a Hibiscus Hedge? #permutation #sequence Dean has three colors of the hibiscus: red, orange, and yellow. He wants to plant them in a straight hedge of shrubs (each of which is one color) so that the order appears somewhat random, but not truly random. More specifically, he […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/04/15/thisweeksfiddler-20250411/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250404
This week the question is: Can You Solve a High Schooler’s Favorite Puzzle? A teacher is handing out candy to his students, of which there are at least four. He abides by the following rules: It turns out that every possible trio can get a helping of candy. What is the smallest class size for […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/04/08/thisweeksfiddler-20250404/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250328
This week the question is: Can You Root for the Underdog? Once again, there are four teams remaining in a bracket: the 1-seed, the 2-seed, the 3-seed, and the 4-seed. In the first round, the 1-seed faces the 4-seed, while the 2-seed faces the 3-seed. The winners of these two matches then face each other […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/04/01/thisweeksfiddler-20250328/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250321
This week the question is: Can You Play the Favorite? March Madness—the NCAA basketball tournament—is here! The single-elimination tournament consists of 64 teams spread across four regions, each with teams seeded 1 through 16. (In recent years, additional teams beyond the 64 have been added, but you needn’t worry about these teams for this week’s […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/03/25/thisweeksfiddler-20250321/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250314
This week the question title is: A Pi Day Puzzle You are planning a picnic on the remote tropical island of 𝜋-land. The island’s shape is a perfect semi-disk with two beaches, as illustrated below: Semicircular Beach (along the northern semicircular edge of the disk) and Diametric Beach (along the southern diameter of the disk). […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/03/18/thisweeksfiddler-20250314/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250307
This week the question is: Can You Tip the Dominoes? You are placing many, many dominoes in a straight line, one at a time. However, each time you place a domino, there is a 1 percent chance that you accidentally tip it over, causing a chain reaction that tips over all dominoes you’ve placed. After […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/03/11/thisweeksfiddler-20250307/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250228
This week the question is: How Many Rabbits Can You Pull out of a Hat? I have a hat with six small toy rabbits: two are orange, two are green, and two purple. I shuffle the rabbits around and randomly draw them out one at a time without replacement (i.e., once I draw a rabbit […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/03/06/thisweeksfiddler-20250228/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250221
This week the question is: Can You xxxxx A new season of LearnedLeague recently kicked off! Many folks may not be familiar with this daily trivia platform. I learned about it a few years ago and joined after my turn as a game show contestant. Anyway, here’s how it works: Every day, you and your […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/02/25/thisweeksfiddler-20250221/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250214
This week the question is: Can You Squeeze the Heart? You can generate a heart shape by drawing a unit square (i.e., a square with side length 1), and then attaching semicircles (each with radius 1/2) to adjacent edges, as shown in the diagram below: What is the radius of the smallest circle that contains […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/02/18/thisweeksfiddler-20250214/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250207
This week the question is: Can You Bounce a Ball Like an AI? … suppose you have a unit square that’s rotating about its center at a constant (nonzero) angular speed, and there’s a moving ball inside. The ball has a constant (nonzero) linear speed, and there’s no friction or gravity. When the ball hits […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/02/11/thisweeksfiddler-20250207/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250131
This week the question is: Can You Spin the Graph? You’re taking a math exam, and you’ve been asked to draw the graph of a function. That is, your graph must pass the vertical line test, so that no vertical line intersects your function’s graph more than once. You decide you’re going to graph the […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/02/04/thisweeksfiddler-20250131/
#ThisWeeksFiddler, 20250124
This week the question is: Can You Hop to the Lily Pad? You are a frog in a pond with four lily pads, marked “1” through “4.” You are currently on pad 2, and your goal is to make it to pad 1. From any given pad, there are specific probabilities that you’ll jump to […]
https://stuff.ommadawn.dk/2025/01/28/thisweeksfiddler-20250124/
