Two kinds of people... (continued)

[Note: this post is continued from yesterday. I've repeated the last few lines from the previous post to provide continuity. --KB]

Well, here's my “two types” theory for the day (I'm sure I'll have another one tomorrow).

There are two types of people in the world: those who like so-called logic problems and those who don't.

You can probably guess which type I am by my use of the word “so-called” to describe these problems. By “logic problems” or “logic puzzles,” people mean “math.”

Logic is part math, sure. But it is also part language. These are what my fourth-grade math teacher used to refer to as “word problems,” to make it sound like they would be more interesting and solvable than actual math problems. But they were really just math problems masquerading as interesting scenarios. By the end of the problem I felt like I had gotten to read a little story, which I liked. And then the teacher would say, “Okay, students, now I want you to come up with the answer.” And I would think, “Answer? Answer to what?” To which the teacher would say, “You have three minutes, starting...now.”

I am not good at math. You may have already guessed that. To say that I'm not good at math is like saying that Bernie Madoff was not good at investing or that Joseph Stalin was not good at interpersonal relationships. I really suck at math.

But I'm not an illogical person. In fact, my college offered a number of logic classes (which were in the philosophy department, not the math department). I took them all. In fact, I took enough logic classes to be able to claim philosophy as a minor. (Though I don't.)

So, logic yes, math no.

There is not really all that much logic in the average logic problem, or puzzle. But there is a lot of mucking about with charts and graphs and columns and rows, all carefully marked with people's names, dates, types of freight, country names, speeds of vehicles, and so forth.

Good grief! Do people really not have enough to do?

If you don't know what I'm talking about, just google this as well. I found many excellent examples of this particular kind of time waster at puzzles.com (which I'm sure is an excellent site, by the way, for people who enjoy puzzles of all kinds. If you are that type of person, that is.)

Here are just a couple: (you can skip the part between the lines if you already know what I'm talking about. Just know that I will give the answers to the problems at the end of today's post.)
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Elliot and four friends were amateur astronomers and often spent nights together observing the stars through their telescopes. Recently, they’d discovered a new way to enjoy their passion – not just observing the heavens but also photographing them. Using laptops and digital cameras connected to the telescopes, they scanned the sky for astronomical phenomena to photograph. On Friday night, the five friends met for the evening to view the stars. It was a beautiful night for astronomy. Weather conditions were perfect for viewing, the sky clear and brilliant with stars; even the temperature was pleasant, warm but comfortable. As a result, some of them stayed out quite late and all shot some great photos. Each had two photos in particular that were just fantastic images. By happy coincidence, each happened to be shooting something different when those photos were taken so by the end of the night, they had a phenomenal collection of images to show off (each managed to capture a different planet and a different nebula). Determine the full name of each amateur astronomer, the time each packed up for the night (between midnight and 4am), and the planet and nebula each captured with a fantastic image.

1.Mr. Masters got a terrific picture of the Ring Nebula. Felix didn’t get a picture of the Orion Nebula.
2.And then there were five more “clues,” along with several complex-looking tables of names and such to help you solve the problem. (I'll give the answer at the end of my post today.)


Elliot worked for a distributor and looking at his work schedule this morning, he had a lot of scheduled pickups to get ready for the trucks. The odd thing about today's work schedule was that all of the trucks scheduled for pickups were from independent trucking companies instead of the large trucking companies who handled the bulk of their shipping. Shrugging, he hurried off to get the scheduled goods ready for shipment. Determine the name of each trucking company picking up loads today, the name of each truck driver, the type of goods each was picking up, and each trucker's final destination.

1.Freight Away was carrying shoes but not to Ohio.
2.And then there were five more “clues,” along with several complex-looking tables of names and such to help you solve the problem. (I'll give the answer at the end of my post today.)
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Okay, you get the idea. Surely you had to solve these kinds of problems when you were in grade school.

To solve the problems, my first question is this: Why did they use the name Elliot in both puzzles? I mean, all of the male names in the world, and they use Elliot twice? Doesn't that strike anyone else as weird? Elliot is such an uncommon name, not to say that it's twerpy and odd, it's just uncommon. Why not use Robert or James or William? I am not making this up. Go to logic puzzles at puzzles.com, and you'll see that they really did use Elliot twice.

But that kind of thinking isn't going to get this problem solved, is it? And—yikes!--I have only 90 seconds left! Aaaggggghhhhh!!!

This pretty much sums up my entire mathematics career, from kindergarten through the first year of college (which is the last time that I had to take a math class, since I quickly declared a non-mathematical major after that).

I'm going to give the answers to the two above problems in just a moment. But first I have to observe that giving the answers is not really necessary. That is because of the two types of people in the world. The type that likes logic puzzles has long since abandoned this long blog post for puzzles.com so that they could 1) find something interesting to do, and 2) see the cool, complicated tables. The only people left reading at this point are people who 1) do not like logic puzzles, 2) do not have anything interesting to do, and 3) are related to me.

So, given that the only people who are still reading are not interested in logic puzzles, I will give only the final answer to each logic puzzle, without all of the complicated explanation required to show you how the answer was reached. And, for those of you who think that I am going to say that the answer is “I don't know,” all I can say is that that is an extremely cynical, sarcastic, and ignorant way of thinking.

I have, though, discovered in all my years of having to try to answer these puzzles, come to the conclusion that the answers are quite simple and easily arrived at. The answers to all such problems are, “Who cares?” or “Don't do it, then.” If the second answer is not appropriate for the way that the problem was couched, then I can assure you that the first answer always works and is always appropriate.