bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1992) — Spring 1992 // Printemps 1992, p. 48
The word spread like wildfire around bout de papier — A Aalto had puzzler’s block! Deadlines were drawing tight, migraines were drawing tighter, but still no puzzle from Hell, Norway. Everything was tried — injections with extract of Boolean algebra, dropping him from a great height into a vat of Roget’s Thesauri, even a swift kick in the gluteus maximus — nothing availed. Gloom settled like glue in Tannu Tuva. Around the conference room table sat Aalto’s five main characters, desperately seeking a formula to revive the ailing sage. The seating was as follows, with each chair a different colour and one (chair #3) empty:
Chief Hamish MacBannock suggested firing Aalto, until others pointed out that, as figments of the latter’s imagination, this idea would imply their own extinction. They were unamused by Jimmy (the Turk) Flecker noting that his reputation as a colourful if minor 19th century diplomat and poet would provide him a measure of insurance. Detective Superintendent de Toombs suggested a nice juicy murder to distract Aalto, but he found no volunteers for the starring role. Lydia Kraantz argued that Liebnitz, as protagonist, should come up with something. The ace logician promised to try, but revealed a long-smothered resentment at his creator for so consistently mis-spelling his name (Leibniz). The mood lightened sharply when someone suggested they send out for lunch. Each character ordered and consumed one sandwich and one beverage from this menu:
Sandwiches Drinks
Peanut Butter $2.00 Coffee $1.00
Brie $2.00 Tea $1.00
Chicken $3.00 Cola $1.50
Tuna $3.00
Bagel w/Lox $4.00
Liebnitz started taking minutes, in which the lunch got mixed up with a personnel questionnaire each character had filled out. The minutes read:
- Each one around the table has a different sandwich, a different tab for their lunch, a different age (between 30 and 60) and a different IQ (between 110 and 150).
- Lydia, who is sitting at the west end of the table, has an IQ of 126, which happens to be the exact average of the 5 characters present.
- The man in the orange chair ordered coffee; so did the man directly facing him.
- De Toomb’s age is half his IQ, but twice the age of the man at one end of the table.
- Of the two characters who ordered cola, one has a tuna sandwich, the other a peanut butter.
- MacBannock, who is sitting in the violet chair beside the man who is 42, has the lowest tab; the man directly facing him has the highest.
- The average age of the 5 characters is exactly 45 years.
- The man in the blue chair, who is beside the man with the 112 IQ on one side and the man who is drinking tea on the other, is allergic to fish.
- The man who is 57 ordered a brie sandwich.
- Liebnitz’s IQ is the product of Flecker’s tab and the age of the character in the red chair; all three numbers are perfect squares.
The meeting broke up amicably, but without much in the way of suggestions for Aalto. Liebnitz nevertheless sent him the minutes, along with a souvenir colour photo of the meeting in progress. Aalto wrote back with two questions: What is the IQ of the man in the green chair? And who had the chicken sandwich?
Can you help out poor old A Aalto by answering these questions? As an optional problem, what colour would the empty chair most likely be?
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1992) — Spring 1992 // Printemps 1992, p. 48. Read the rest of this issue →
