POTD - July 12

[bartshan-83]

Since I forgot to post on Friday, here's two: 128, 22

 

LAST WEEK:

 

1. firecracker, crackerjack, jackrabbit, rabbit punch, punch card, cardboard, boardwalk, walkabout, about-face, Facebook, book fair, fair exchange, exchange student, student body, body double, double-cross, crossfire.

 

2. microorganism....well done Sage. I must have stared that one for 20 minutes before crumbling it up and throwing it in the trash.

 

 

TODAY:

 

***Thanks to people who are putting their answers in yellow font. I think that is cool so more people can do them w/o seeing the answers.**

 

 

1. Many famous people's initials lend themselves to self-descriptive phrases. For example. "Wrote Sonnets" works well for "William Shakespeare." Identify the famous people below.

 

1. Famous Nurse

2. Noteworthy Astronaut

3. Mayor Billionaire

4. Played Bond

5. Resigned Notoriously

6. Generated Ballets

7. Fettered Cuba?

8. Created Drood

 

 

2. In a department store, there are two identical escalators side by side. One moves upward at a certain rate, and the second moves downward at the exact same rate. Two men each walk down a different escalator, stepping on every step as they descend and always taking one step per second. The man walking down the down escalator takes 24 steps to reach the bottom, and the man walking down the up escalator takes 120 steps to reach the bottom. If the escalators instead had not been moving, how many steps would either man have taken to reach the bottom?

[shrader]

I won't bother with the name one since there are a one or two I'm not sure on.

 

2. The person on the down escalator moved down at a speed of 1+x (where x is measured in steps per second) for 24 seconds. The guy on the up escalator moved at a speed of 1-x for 120 seconds. They each traveled the same distance so:

24(1+x)=120(1-x)

...

x=2/3 steps per second, the speed each escalator is moving in opposite directions

 

So now solve for the original distance:

24(1+x)=24(5/3)=40

120(1-x)=120(1/3)=40

 

40 steps

[linksfiend]

Ohh, I love the math ones. Lets see:

v = velocity of stairs in steps/second

Knowing the people move at 1 step/sec,

Down guy covers: 24 = h - v · 24 or h = 24 + 24v

Up guy: 120 = h + v · 120 or h = 120 - 120v

 

Setting h equal to each other and solving for v:

v = 2/3 steps/sec

 

Plugging back into first eq:

h = 40 steps

And back to #1:

1. Famous Nurse = Florence Nightingale

2. Noteworthy Astronaut = Neil Armstrong

3. Mayor Billionaire = Michael Bloomberg

4. Played Bond = Pierce Brosnan

5. Resigned Notoriously - Richard Nixon

6. Generated Ballets - (beats me)

7. Fettered Cuba? - Fidel Castro

8. Created Drood - (what/who is Drood?)

[Beerball]

Ohh, I love the math ones. Lets see:

v = velocity of stairs in steps/second

Knowing the people move at 1 step/sec,

Down guy covers: 24 = h - v · 24 or h = 24 + 24v

Up guy: 120 = h + v · 120 or h = 120 - 120v

 

Setting h equal to each other and solving for v:

v = 2/3 steps/sec

 

Plugging back into first eq:

h = 40 steps

And back to #1:

1. Famous Nurse = Florence Nightingale

2. Noteworthy Astronaut = Neil Armstrong

3. Mayor Billionaire = Michael Bloomberg

4. Played Bond = Pierce Brosnan

5. Resigned Notoriously - Richard Nixon

6. Generated Ballets - (beats me) George Balinchine

7. Fettered Cuba? - Fidel Castro

8. Created Drood - (what/who is Drood?) Charles Dickens

Answered the 2 you were missing for #1.

[linksfiend]

Answered the 2 you were missing for #1.

Ahh - I'm obviously lacking in culture.

 

Also shrader's explanation is both clearer and more concise than mine.

[shrader]

Ahh - I'm obviously lacking in culture.

 

Also shrader's explanation is both clearer and more concise than mine.

 

I guess it's a good thing that I included the explanation then. I was going to skip it. Oh, and I missed the same two in the first one as you. I guess I could have cheated, but there was no way I'd ever get those two on my own.