"Mathematical Puzzles of Sam Loyd"
Edited by Martin Gardner
From: Dover Publications in 1959
How much should the
young Lady be charged
for shipping two
boxes to the mining town?
The Deadwood Express
arrived at a western mining town
with a consignment
of two boxes for a young lady. A
lively dispute quickly
developed between the express-
man and the lady's
miner friends.
The difficulty was
that the expressman wished to charge
for the boxes at
the rate of $5 per cubic foot, as per
his instructions
on the freight bill. The miners, how-
ever, strenuously
objected on the grounds that their
custom was invariably
to pay so much per running foot -
according to mining
laws. They could not see what right
an express company
had to meddle with the "cubic contents"
of a young lady's
box, anyway!
The expressman was
compelled to accept the proposed terms,
 |
so
he measured the length of the boxes and
charged $5 per running
foot. Both boxes
were perfectly cubical
and one was exactly
half the height of
the other.
Photo from MKHeritage.co.uk |
.
The strange part
of the problem is that when the express-
man placed the two
boxes together and measured their com-
bined length it was
found that there was not the thousandth
part of a cent difference
in the ways of charging - at $5
per cubical foot
or at $5 per running foot.
What were the sizes
of the two boxes?
It is a simple yet
interesting puzzle, which will cause the
gray matter in the
brains of our mathematicians to circulate
somewhat before hitting
upon the proper answer. |
.
...