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Subj:.....The Great Horseshoe Puzzle (S593)           From the book             "Mathematical Puzzles of Sam Loyd"              Edited by Martin Gardner              From: Dover Publications in 1959 With two straight cuts divide the horseshoe into seven pieces, one nail hole in each piece.   Here is a puzzle based on the goblin story of "The Golden Horseshoe."  This story tells how a gold horseshoe was cut into seven pieces, a nail hole in each piece, by two strokes of a sword, and how the seven pieces were then suspended by ribbons around the necks of seven children, as lucky talismans. It is assumed that after the first cut the pieces may be piled up before giving the second blow, but the cuts must be straight and there must be no folding or bending of the paper.  I Showed the puzzle to a clever little jockey at a recent horse show. He made a paper horseshoe, and with the first cut divided it into three pieces; then by laying them together his second cut produced six pieces.  The trick, however, is to get the seventh piece, and although it is really a simple puzzle it is suffic- iently interesting to call for some study. After you have solved the puzzle as stated, you are invited to try a second and more difficult problem.  What is the largest number of pieces that can be produced by two cuts?  The condi- tions are the same as before except that the nail holes may be disregarded.

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