The Break Room
(Issue 15, 2009)
BrainTeasers
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Flag Cutting
1.) Can you cut this signal flag into two pieces which fit together to form a
solid blue rectangle?
2.) Can you cut this Swiss flag into two pieces which fit together to form a
solid red rectangle?
3.) Can you cut this American flag with fifteen stripes into only two pieces which will fit together to form a thirteen stripe flag with no wasted material?
Did you know that the American flag actually had 15 stripes for a few years?
Excerpted from Wikipedia:
In 1795, the number of stars and stripes was increased from 13 to 15 (to reflect the entry of Vermont and Kentucky as states of the union). For a time the flag was not changed when subsequent states were admitted, probably because it was thought that this would cause too much clutter. It was the 15-star, 15-stripe flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner," now the national anthem.
On April 4, 1818, a plan was passed by Congress at the suggestion of U.S. Naval Captain Samuel C. Reid in which the flag was changed to have 20 stars (to reflect the number of states at that time), with a new star to be added when any new state was admitted, but the number of stripes would be reduced to 13 - to honor the original colonies. The act specified that new flag designs should become official on the first July 4 (Independence Day) following admission of one or more new states. The most recent change, from 49 stars to 50, occurred in 1960 when the present design was chosen, after Hawaii gained statehood in August 1959. Before that, the admission of Alaska in January 1959 prompted the debut of a short-lived 49-star flag
As of July 4, 2007, the 50-star flag has become the longest rendition in use.
For more history of the US flag please visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States#The_Flag_Resolution_of_1777
And PLEASE don’t desecrate any actual flags while solving these puzzles!
[Credit to: Sam Loyd for this month’s puzzles]
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Click here for BrainTeaser answers
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Engineering a Spider
By Ken Ball
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Watch a spider build its web
Engineering and processes so inbred
What if the spider were suddenly you?
How would you know what to do?
Instinct you say must pave the way
Genes do the guiding; it’s in the DNA
Watson & Crick made the revelations
Organic helices guide life configurations
Ah! How nice the biologists’ advice
Spiders are spiders – not elephants or mice
But just as sciences continues to do
There’s never an answer, just another clue
They just don’t explain the spider’s domain
The weaving machinery; the processing train
Nor how all is programmed and controlled
Maintained and expanded as the spider grows old
So let’s go back and move on the tack
Man surely can emulate a low-level Arach
Assign Chem Es talented and wise
To produce silk from body fluids of flies
About extruding strands – are there special glands?
Can anyone specify maximum rate demands?
We need an entomologist, biochemist, and biologist
Also a project manager who can double as an apologist
Now we’ve become organized in our undertaking
We have the first committee well into the making
Process reads R&D, we see, beyond staff capability
Perhaps meet with MIT; must subcontract very carefully
Cleverly we say, “We’re better off this way”
“Not caught in any web” is the cliché of the day
We’ll analyze the spider’s mechanics instead
Eight legs, abdomen, combined thorax and head
Four pairs of eyes and the body hair belies
They’re really tactile sensors in all shapes and size
We can record web construction as guy lines are run
Then trace the patterned strands; one by one
We will map conformally; we’re now on a roll
Motion guys predict “it has numerical control
But the robotics crew, though only a few
Throws a wrench in the works – actually two
First they report that eight legs with a head
To function will be about as big as a shed
And on the prototype web – the joints never held
While those by the spider were a perfect weld
Then the silk system nerd gave us the word
(Best if he stayed away; never to be heard)
The abdomen would be as best he could see
A cylindrical unit four feet by twenty-three
Discouraging you think but we all had a drink
A toast to our progress; towards a goal so distinct
The report was a masterpiece defining the years
Needed for MEMS and Nano to dry all our tears
All were vindicated as our congressman related
The long term needs – more spending indicated
Weekly project meetings now open with the chant
Thanks be to the funding – our large NSF grant
So look with awe and admiration at a spider in a tree
Appreciate the technology performed so flawlessly
Energy efficient motion; never a wasted move nor a bind
Producing just-in-time; stronger strands than can mankind.
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