1937-04-08 — Page 25

THE CHINA MAIL THURSDAY SUPPLEMENT, APRIL 8, 1937

THE

THE question of

THE

what to do "with the change in one's pockets has ever been open to many answers. You may give it to the poor. You may play the slot-machines. You may stick it in the baby's bank. You may buy another drink. You may stick your fingers into your poc- ket and rattle it around.

But when you are tarily) not in contact

(momen-

with the

poor; when there are no slot- machines; when the baby's bank is at home; when you have had enough to drink for the time bé- ing; when you are with people who are not impressed with jingl- ing silver and copper; then some of the devices offered herewith may serve as pleasant exercises or (who knows?), if you are lunching with the right sort, the foundation for some small but profitable bets.

One amusing little stunt with. coins is to start with four-pen- nies or twenty-dollar gold pieces, as long as they are all alike ranged like this:

ar-

-and by sliding them about, without lifting any of them from the table or employing any extra coins, get them into this position:

That is, arrange them so that if there were a fifth coin in the position shown by the dotted cir- cle, all the original coins would touch it. It won't do to slide the lower right-hand coin over until it is as nearly in correct position as you can judge by eyesight; the position must be exact, not appro- ximate.

It can be done in two moves, as shown below. Move coin

1 around as indicated by the ar- row; then carefully slide coin 4 out of its place and up to the position left open by coin 1.

SILVER

FLEECE

How to be a social success and earn your way through college by learning a few simple tricks

-and then challenge anyone to arrange them so that they would exactly touch a sixth coin, like this:

--keeping to the conditions al- ready laid down and accomplish- ing their object in only four

moves.

It's not too difficult to perform this stunt in an unlimited number of moves; seven is what the novice usually requires. Others, a little le more observant, will do it in six moves, and there is what I believe is the standard solution in five. I make bold to state that I have never seen my own solution in four moves published anywhere, and to that extent I claim it as an original triumph; though bitter experience has taught me that armies of claimants have a way of arising to combat any

such boast. Armies or no armies, I

The trick is to set the

change places by movin

at a time either to a blank space directly or by a jump over a sin- gle coin, with this important con- dition: no coin can ever move backward. Obviously, in the case shown, the nickels can move only

the right, and the pen.

$50505051506

I have indicated two blank spaces at the right of the row; these are to

nies only to the left.

You can start

be used, as necessary, No. 5 over No.

is to-

in solving the puzzle, which this: to get all the nickels gether and all the pennies together. by moving two contiguous coins at a time to the

You might, for spaces.

slide the two left-hand coins around into the spaces at the right; then any other two contiguous coins could be moved into the vacant spaces left by the first pair, and another contiguous two into the spaces left by the second pair, and so on. The blank spaces must be left at one end of the row when you have finished; and only contiguous coins may be moved that is, coins immediately beside each other. Coins between which the vacant spaces happen to fall are not contiguous. Five moves are

ugh to do the trick. The specially good about this one, to my thinking, is that the moves are disguised-no benefit is apparently gained 1 any one pair, though moving you don't start with the right one you're sunk, as far as five moves go. Like

-

ing either coin No. or coin No. 4 to the vacant space; or you

can

coin No. 2 over No. 8,

You wi find that you and your betting comp

an get

hopelessly locked up in this one if you aren't careful. It takes fifteen moves, by the way, and once you learn the trick of it it is a simplicity and a joy forever; you can do it so swiftly that even a watcher won't get on to the system.

And talking of coins and bets won or lost thereby: if you find a friendly stranger at a bar or at

table with no cloth-any bare

bet that he can spin-not toss- wooden surface who wants t

a quarter on the aforesaid bare wooden surface and without look ing at it tell whether it has come down heads or tails, don't you take him up. It will be expertsiva if you do. For this accommodating person has in his po * quarter in one edge of which a tiny notch has been cut with the ade of a knife, so that a wide view of the coin looks like this, much enlarg- ed:

featureI way of opening

By F. Gregory Hartswick

still stick to this. I discovered it -independently, and shall claim it as my own until priority has been established by somebody else.

Enough of such frivolous mat- ters, however. The answer is given elsewhere; meanwhile you might like to try it yourself; and given a reasonable time limit you should enjoy several lunches at the expense of ambitious friends, if you handle the matter proper- -ly.

Another really・・ top-notch coin problem is to take five pennies an

and. five

nickels and lay them in a straight line, alternating pennies and nickels, like this:

That little projecting point of metal does the trick. If the coin ends its spin with that point.

known, it will "run down" quickly,

all such puzzles, if given an un- limited number of moves it can be solved eventually; but the person who is betting with you is not allowed an unlimited number of moves not if you're on the job.

A good deal of money has been won-and lost on this simple proposition: take six coins, three of one kind and three of another

let's stick to pennies and nic- kels and lay them out like so, with a blank space between each group, said blank space to con-.. tain only one coin:

665)

} 2 S

4

5 *

with a rattle; if that side comes up the rundown will be much longer, with the usual whir. Try it yourself. A little practice enable you to distinguish at once! between the sounds; and ing on which side of the coin the notch is, you are naturally to call it correctly every time. explain this at this point in order that my readers may escape the wiles of such unscrupulous, trick- sters; naturally no gentleman would take advantage of a com rade in such an outrageous man-

ner.

(Continued from Page 1).

Nothing much to that one. Ah, but wait! Your friends are by this time interested; take five coins and arrange them like this

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