April 25, 2025 • 19 mins
Hello, Puzzlers! Today, A.J. and Greg give you a little peek behind the curtain and take you on a tour of the Puzzle Lab.
Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask AI” and audio rebuses.
Subscribe to The Puzzler podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas.
Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.
The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions.
Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, puzzlers. I want to start by mentioning that today,
April twenty fifth is Portuguese Independence Day Palaiseo Felice Independence
State Portugal. Portugal inspired me to start with a quick
geography puzzle because Portugal has an unusual geographic quirk, which
(00:23):
is that it shares a border with only one other country, Spain.
Now this is uncommon. There are only fifteen countries on
Earth that border on one and only one other country.
There are lots of countries that share borders with zero countries,
the every island nation, countries that have several bordering nations.
US borders Canada and Mexico. Question is, can you name
(00:46):
any countries that border only one other country? Portugal is one,
Spain is not because Spain borders Portugal, but also France and Andorra.
Also Canada not on the list. I thought it was.
It turns out not so much. It borders the US,
but also shares a border with Greenland. There's an island
(01:07):
up there that's half owned by Canada, half by Greenland,
and for now at least the Greenland is part of Denmark.
So the question is, can you name any of the
fifteen countries border only one other country, the answers, and
more puzzling goodness after the break. Hello puzzlers, Welcome to
(01:33):
the Buzzler Podcast, The Colorful Legend in the corner of
your Rand McNally puzzle mat I'm your host, A J. Jacobs,
and I'm here with Chief puzzle Officer Greg Fliska. Greg.
Before the break, we asked which country's border one and
only one other country in addition to Portugal, anything come
to mind.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I love this puzzle. I'm a geography nut. I've spent
a lot of time on Sporkle, the website that has
all kinds of quizzes, including geography quizzes, where you can
just grind your way through the world and learn everything
there is to know about world geography. So I can
I thought of several. There are a few of these,
(02:11):
three or four that are completely landlocked, yes, that don't
even border ocean. And two of them border the same
other country, which is crazy, which is Italy, folks, It
is Italy. San Marino, a little mountainous land is in
the middle of part of Italy, and Vatican City is
in the middle of Rome, separate country in the middle
(02:31):
of Italy, and another landlock one is the Soto in
South which is bordered by South Africa.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
That's all the ones that were listed on that are
as landlocked. That's what I the only ones I could find.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
But some others. I got some others. For South Korea,
I think it only borders the north. Correct. Do Singapore
border Malaysia? Yeah? Singapore Singapore, I'm not saying land.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
There is the one that only borders Malaysia, Brunei.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Brunei on the oh oh, and there's two in our hetmosphere,
Haiti and the Dominican Republic exact each other. Island.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I'm just going to reel through the others because we
have so much to do, but it's well done. We've
got Ireland and the UK because North North Ireland is
considered part of the UK. Brune the Gambia borders only Senegal,
Monaco borders only France, Cutter only Saudi Arabia, Team more
(03:36):
less Day.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Team or Last Day, the little one of the newest
countries of the world.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Team or less Day if you're American, Team or less
if you're British apparently team or less Day Indonesia and
Indonesia has two just like like Italy, Papua New Guinea.
So there you go. All right, there's our geography lessons
for the day, and again, happy Portuguese Independence Day. We
(04:05):
had this week was a fun week. We had author
Gretchen Ruben, but we of course couldn't get to everything
we needed to with Gretchen. Gretchen has written a book
about aphorisms, so we did a puzzle about updating aphorisms.
(04:26):
For instance, a penny saved as a penny earned became
a bitcoin saved as a bitcoin earned, that kind of thing.
But one thing we discussed with Gretchen was that many
aphorisms have an opposite aphorism that is often considered true
as well. So this puzzle I'm going to give to
(04:50):
Greg and Andrea is I'm going to give you an aphorism,
and you see if you can come up with something
that is opposite or approximately opposite to that aphorism.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So what you're saying is if I want to live
my life by aphorisms that I have no way to
know what to do.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
You will be very confused.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I'm gonna have one thing telling me something and the
other tells me the opposite.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Okay, exactly fine, And we will let me start with well,
opposites attract, is office. It's often said opposites attract, So
what's the what is the bizarro world version or mirror version.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
It's not, it's not it's not a thing. This is
the thing people say like like likes like like like
because I.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Could that could? I mean a lot of these have
and more than one answer.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I know, I know which one you're looking for? Is
it birds feather birds of a feather flock together?
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Exactly, Opposites attract birds of a feather flock together, which
is actually more scientifically true, people are more likely to
end up with someone similar. How about absence makes the
heart grow fonder? They there's a saying that's quite the
and let me give you a clue for those who
are listening. The first part of this aphorism was a
(06:09):
delightful Jennifer Lopez George.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, yeah, famous one. This is out of sight, out
of mind.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
That's it. Absence makes the heart grow fonder versus out
of sight, out of mind.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Protecnicarly, they're not contradictory. It's like if your partner goes
far away, you stop thinking about them, but you like
them more.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
I can't parse that. That seems that's interesting. I would
say my guess is sadly that out of sight, out
of mind is more accurate if they did studies well.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And I think it's true. I am not happy when
my wife is away for a long time. I am
not I mean, am I fonder of her? No, as
fond of her as I always am.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
You're just unhappy, Yeah, I'm just unhappy?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Right?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah? How about this one? Many hands make light work.
Many hand hands make light work, So this, uh, the
opposite of that, like the it's a culinary phrase, a
culinary phrase.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Andrea, do you know this one?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Too many cooks in the kitchen. Something spoil the broth.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Nothing else spoil the broth.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, and you could have You could argue that they
do it quickly. So many hands make late work, meaning
it's they do it quickly, but they do it badly.
You could say that, how about he who hesitates is lost,
He who hesitates is lost. This one you looking for?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
It's alliterative, Yes it is, Yes it is.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
You got it all right? Give us those, give us
those literate before you leap. That is correct. So there
you go. We have, as Greg said.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Don't no idea how to behave.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Not we do. You can basically you can rationalize any
action you want UH with an ancient aphorism.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
So in fact, there's probably an aphorism that means.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
That exactly and the opposite. UH. So that is my
report from UH from this week. But also since it's Friday,
we have we have the report from the Puzzler newsticker
with Moniting. We are always monitoring for breaking puzzle news
(08:31):
and Greg, you've been on it this week. What do
you got?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I got a bunch of you know, it's fitting that
you opened up with the geography puzzle because I've got
a bunch of news from around the world, just some
short items. I thought we were interesting, all right, well,
moving around the world to another country with a single
border to another country. Haiti the news itself. The Haitian
(08:59):
embassy in Madrid hosted an event for children six to
twelve years old to compete at solving Jigsaw's that's not
big news. But the host, who was the Charge affairs
of the Haitian Embassy, framed the event in a way
that I thought you would appreciate. Aj. He said, today
we have gathered children between six and twelve to play
a game as fun as symbolic. This game, which requires patience, reflection,
(09:23):
and perseverance, perfectly embodies the spirit we need to rebuild Haiti.
May each piece of the puzzle you set today be
a promise for the future, a commitment to building a
more united and united and supportive world. And above all,
let us continue to build together, piece by piece, a
better future for Haiti.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Amen. I love that. Yes, that was a theme of
the Puzzler book was that it's a good metaphor for
working together, for building for solutions. Jakesaw puzzles can save
the world. I would say more specific less specifically, all
puzzles can save the world, not just Jake sauce word
(10:03):
puzzles where puzzles will save the world.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Nice little, you know statement from the Churget the fairs there,
all right, Well, now let's go to Italy, which borders
two of these single border countries. There's a ted X
talk that I came across by Roxanne and George Miller,
who are the founders of the World Puzzle Center HUH,
which is located in a castle in Panacae, Italy in Umbria.
(10:29):
They bought the castle three years ago to house their
collection of over eighty thousand mechanical puzzles.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yes, I have acted eighty thousand. I actually know these people.
I blurbed their documentary. May you look at if you
look at their document Did you see the documentary?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
No? I just saw that this little talk they did
about the finding the castle and buying it and setting it.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Up, well, I don't remember the details. So tell us
what eighty thousand called.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Twenty thousand, and this is a castle in Umbria that
they came across. You have a blog called notes from
from the Puzzle Palace where you can go back and
read about all their exploits. They're just huge fans of
mechanical puzzles and they've bought this castle, they renovated it,
they put their puzzles in it. You can visit and
there's a workshop where you can create your own mechanical puzzles.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
And mechanical puzzles for those who don't know, those are
what like the twisty Rubik's cube types count as those.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
That's also you've got these pieces that fit together into
a cube, but then you take them apart and they're
weird shaped and you gotta forget it together.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
A wire puzzles, those are a big thing. And yeah,
they're very fun.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
All right. Two more items. In Singapore, which is landlocked
but not doesn't border anything else because it's an island.
Singapore is a unique country that is also a city,
right the city and the capital of Singapore, and the
country is Singapore. It's the whole deal. The Vogue, the
Vogue edition that is published in Singapore, had a feature
(12:00):
about the iconic low puzzle bag Loewe. It's an iconic
fashion accessory that gets its name from its its sort
of cuboid form. But it's just it's reassembled like a
three dimensional puzzle. So all these little triangular leather pieces
are put together to make this beautiful bag. Hard to
(12:22):
describe in words, but you can see it online. Maybe
you own one. It's the tenth anniversary of the edition
of this bag.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And it's only eighty two thousand dollars exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
You can either buy a castle in Italy the Houser puzzles,
or you can get the puzzle bag. Either will work.
So finally, the whole point of this is that I
caught a Medium post this week about a classic math
problem that wraps this up this around the world segment
rather aptly.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I'm ready for the aptness.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
So imagine you have a rope that encircles the globe
uh to the surface. Right now, you have to imagine
that for the person of this puzzle, that the Earth
is actually a perfect flat sphere all the way around.
There's no mountains or valleys or anything. It's just a
perfect earthly sphere.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Got it.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Okay, So you've got a rope that's tight to the surface.
It's about twenty five thousand miles or forty million meters long.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
That's how long that rope would have to be, right right.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Now, Suppose you're gonna add two meters of length to
the rope. You're gonna cut it. You're gonna get a
two meter segment that's about six feet or so inserted
into the rope. Yes, so now it's forty million plus
two meters long. Okay, it's gonna get looser, right, It's
gonna get looser. The question is how much looser will
it get? How far off the surface of the Earth
(13:47):
will the rope rise?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
That is I have heard this probably like three times.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Okay, and I'm gonna give you the multiple choice.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Okay, remember one, I've forgotten that every time.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Does it rise and just enough to fit a couple
of molecules under.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, okay, enough.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
To slide a playing card under, yeah, enough to crawl under,
or enough to walk under?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Oh oh, all right, well, Andrea Associate puzzler Andrea is here.
I'm guessing I could try to reason and think about geometry,
but instead I'm gonna be lazy. I'm gonna say it's
probably not the playing card and the dime, because that's
what you expect, and that wouldn't be a very fun puzzle, right, I.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Said playing card, and I said molecules are enough to
walk under? Right?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Well I would say yes, and.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
See you're too clever about this, aren't you.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
So I'm gonna say it's either crawl under or walk under.
The most surprising with the walk under, but I feel
that it would raise maybe two feet would be in
a simp. I would say crawl, but that's just what
do you got? Andrea? Are you with me or against me?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
I'll I'll just choose the one you don't choose, and
then we cover our faces and we can share the win.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Well, there were for I thought it, but we but
we got rid of the first two. I see, Okay,
so I'm going to crawl under and you can have
walk on all right, So.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
You're telling me you got a forty million meter rope.
You add two meters to it, and it's bigger than
just a playing card.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
It makes no sense. It makes no sense. But I
also know it would be a very boring puzzle.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Is it's enough to crawl under it rises about a
foot off the surface.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
And how does that work?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
So here's how this works. The circumference of a circle,
the length all the way around it is two times
pie times the radius. Radius is the distance from the
center to the edge. That's the formula for that, right right.
If you add a foot to the radius, right, the
(15:55):
radius is a foot longer, then you are expanding it
by two times pie times one foot. Two times pie
is about three point one four right, so it's just
over six meters six feet. Rather that you would expand
the circumference when you add a foot to the radius. Okay,
and six feet is about two meters. So conversely, if
(16:17):
you add that two meters to the circumference, the radius
expands by a foot. It doesn't matter how big the
original circle is. The original circle could be around your head,
it could be around the globe, whatever it is, it
expands the radius by a foot when you add two
meters to the circumference.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Love it well. Thank you for the trip around the world.
Have a great weekend folks, wherever you are on the
globe or wherever you are going. And if you have
a puzzle, need a puzzle fix, then check out the
puzzle er Instagram feed at Hello Puzzles. We got brand
new puzzles, visual puzzles, lots of fun stuff and we
(16:58):
will see you here on Monday for more puzzling puzzles
that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Hello puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer, here
with the extra credit answer from our previous episode. AJ
played some games with the wonderful and punny Ben Bass,
and all the answers in this puzzle are forward phrases
that all start with the same letter, like Ben Bass's
brass band. They also happen to be tongue twisters. Try
(17:32):
saying that five times fast. Your clue is this. This
is what the singer of What's Love Got to do
with It uses in her chemistry lab, and that of
course is Tina Turner's test tube. Who that is a
tongue Twister. Thanks for playing along with us, and we'll
see you here next time. Thanks for playing along with
(17:54):
the team here at The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs, I'm
Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer. Our executive producers are
Neelie Lohman and Adam Newhouse of New House Ideas and
Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced by
Jody Averragan and Brittany Brown of Roulette Productions, with production
support from Claire Bidegar Curtis. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
(18:19):
The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs is a co production with
New House Ideas and is distributed by Therapist Coda No No, No,
No No, Rearrange those letters distributed by iHeart Podcasts. If
you want to know more about puzzling puzzles, please check
out the book The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs, a history
of puzzles that The New York Times called fun and funny.
(18:42):
It features an original puzzle hunt by yours truly, and
is available wherever you get your books and puzzlers. For
all your puzzling needs, go visit the Puzzler dot com.
See you there,
Hello, puzzlers. I want to start by mentioning that today,
April twenty fifth is Portuguese Independence Day Palaiseo Felice Independence
State Portugal. Portugal inspired me to start with a quick
geography puzzle because Portugal has an unusual geographic quirk, which
(00:23):
is that it shares a border with only one other country, Spain.
Now this is uncommon. There are only fifteen countries on
Earth that border on one and only one other country.
There are lots of countries that share borders with zero countries,
the every island nation, countries that have several bordering nations.
US borders Canada and Mexico. Question is, can you name
(00:46):
any countries that border only one other country? Portugal is one,
Spain is not because Spain borders Portugal, but also France and Andorra.
Also Canada not on the list. I thought it was.
It turns out not so much. It borders the US,
but also shares a border with Greenland. There's an island
(01:07):
up there that's half owned by Canada, half by Greenland,
and for now at least the Greenland is part of Denmark.
So the question is, can you name any of the
fifteen countries border only one other country, the answers, and
more puzzling goodness after the break. Hello puzzlers, Welcome to
(01:33):
the Buzzler Podcast, The Colorful Legend in the corner of
your Rand McNally puzzle mat I'm your host, A J. Jacobs,
and I'm here with Chief puzzle Officer Greg Fliska. Greg.
Before the break, we asked which country's border one and
only one other country in addition to Portugal, anything come
to mind.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I love this puzzle. I'm a geography nut. I've spent
a lot of time on Sporkle, the website that has
all kinds of quizzes, including geography quizzes, where you can
just grind your way through the world and learn everything
there is to know about world geography. So I can
I thought of several. There are a few of these,
(02:11):
three or four that are completely landlocked, yes, that don't
even border ocean. And two of them border the same
other country, which is crazy, which is Italy, folks, It
is Italy. San Marino, a little mountainous land is in
the middle of part of Italy, and Vatican City is
in the middle of Rome, separate country in the middle
(02:31):
of Italy, and another landlock one is the Soto in
South which is bordered by South Africa.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
That's all the ones that were listed on that are
as landlocked. That's what I the only ones I could find.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
But some others. I got some others. For South Korea,
I think it only borders the north. Correct. Do Singapore
border Malaysia? Yeah? Singapore Singapore, I'm not saying land.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
There is the one that only borders Malaysia, Brunei.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Brunei on the oh oh, and there's two in our hetmosphere,
Haiti and the Dominican Republic exact each other. Island.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I'm just going to reel through the others because we
have so much to do, but it's well done. We've
got Ireland and the UK because North North Ireland is
considered part of the UK. Brune the Gambia borders only Senegal,
Monaco borders only France, Cutter only Saudi Arabia, Team more
(03:36):
less Day.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Team or Last Day, the little one of the newest
countries of the world.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Team or less Day if you're American, Team or less
if you're British apparently team or less Day Indonesia and
Indonesia has two just like like Italy, Papua New Guinea.
So there you go. All right, there's our geography lessons
for the day, and again, happy Portuguese Independence Day. We
(04:05):
had this week was a fun week. We had author
Gretchen Ruben, but we of course couldn't get to everything
we needed to with Gretchen. Gretchen has written a book
about aphorisms, so we did a puzzle about updating aphorisms.
(04:26):
For instance, a penny saved as a penny earned became
a bitcoin saved as a bitcoin earned, that kind of thing.
But one thing we discussed with Gretchen was that many
aphorisms have an opposite aphorism that is often considered true
as well. So this puzzle I'm going to give to
(04:50):
Greg and Andrea is I'm going to give you an aphorism,
and you see if you can come up with something
that is opposite or approximately opposite to that aphorism.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So what you're saying is if I want to live
my life by aphorisms that I have no way to
know what to do.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
You will be very confused.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I'm gonna have one thing telling me something and the
other tells me the opposite.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Okay, exactly fine, And we will let me start with well,
opposites attract, is office. It's often said opposites attract, So
what's the what is the bizarro world version or mirror version.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
It's not, it's not it's not a thing. This is
the thing people say like like likes like like like
because I.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Could that could? I mean a lot of these have
and more than one answer.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I know, I know which one you're looking for? Is
it birds feather birds of a feather flock together?
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Exactly, Opposites attract birds of a feather flock together, which
is actually more scientifically true, people are more likely to
end up with someone similar. How about absence makes the
heart grow fonder? They there's a saying that's quite the
and let me give you a clue for those who
are listening. The first part of this aphorism was a
(06:09):
delightful Jennifer Lopez George.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, yeah, famous one. This is out of sight, out
of mind.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
That's it. Absence makes the heart grow fonder versus out
of sight, out of mind.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Protecnicarly, they're not contradictory. It's like if your partner goes
far away, you stop thinking about them, but you like
them more.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
I can't parse that. That seems that's interesting. I would
say my guess is sadly that out of sight, out
of mind is more accurate if they did studies well.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And I think it's true. I am not happy when
my wife is away for a long time. I am
not I mean, am I fonder of her? No, as
fond of her as I always am.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
You're just unhappy, Yeah, I'm just unhappy?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Right?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah? How about this one? Many hands make light work.
Many hand hands make light work, So this, uh, the
opposite of that, like the it's a culinary phrase, a
culinary phrase.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Andrea, do you know this one?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Too many cooks in the kitchen. Something spoil the broth.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Nothing else spoil the broth.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, and you could have You could argue that they
do it quickly. So many hands make late work, meaning
it's they do it quickly, but they do it badly.
You could say that, how about he who hesitates is lost,
He who hesitates is lost. This one you looking for?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
It's alliterative, Yes it is, Yes it is.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
You got it all right? Give us those, give us
those literate before you leap. That is correct. So there
you go. We have, as Greg said.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Don't no idea how to behave.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Not we do. You can basically you can rationalize any
action you want UH with an ancient aphorism.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
So in fact, there's probably an aphorism that means.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
That exactly and the opposite. UH. So that is my
report from UH from this week. But also since it's Friday,
we have we have the report from the Puzzler newsticker
with Moniting. We are always monitoring for breaking puzzle news
(08:31):
and Greg, you've been on it this week. What do
you got?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
I got a bunch of you know, it's fitting that
you opened up with the geography puzzle because I've got
a bunch of news from around the world, just some
short items. I thought we were interesting, all right, well,
moving around the world to another country with a single
border to another country. Haiti the news itself. The Haitian
(08:59):
embassy in Madrid hosted an event for children six to
twelve years old to compete at solving Jigsaw's that's not
big news. But the host, who was the Charge affairs
of the Haitian Embassy, framed the event in a way
that I thought you would appreciate. Aj. He said, today
we have gathered children between six and twelve to play
a game as fun as symbolic. This game, which requires patience, reflection,
(09:23):
and perseverance, perfectly embodies the spirit we need to rebuild Haiti.
May each piece of the puzzle you set today be
a promise for the future, a commitment to building a
more united and united and supportive world. And above all,
let us continue to build together, piece by piece, a
better future for Haiti.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Amen. I love that. Yes, that was a theme of
the Puzzler book was that it's a good metaphor for
working together, for building for solutions. Jakesaw puzzles can save
the world. I would say more specific less specifically, all
puzzles can save the world, not just Jake sauce word
(10:03):
puzzles where puzzles will save the world.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Nice little, you know statement from the Churget the fairs there,
all right, Well, now let's go to Italy, which borders
two of these single border countries. There's a ted X
talk that I came across by Roxanne and George Miller,
who are the founders of the World Puzzle Center HUH,
which is located in a castle in Panacae, Italy in Umbria.
(10:29):
They bought the castle three years ago to house their
collection of over eighty thousand mechanical puzzles.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yes, I have acted eighty thousand. I actually know these people.
I blurbed their documentary. May you look at if you
look at their document Did you see the documentary?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
No? I just saw that this little talk they did
about the finding the castle and buying it and setting it.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Up, well, I don't remember the details. So tell us
what eighty thousand called.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Twenty thousand, and this is a castle in Umbria that
they came across. You have a blog called notes from
from the Puzzle Palace where you can go back and
read about all their exploits. They're just huge fans of
mechanical puzzles and they've bought this castle, they renovated it,
they put their puzzles in it. You can visit and
there's a workshop where you can create your own mechanical puzzles.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
And mechanical puzzles for those who don't know, those are
what like the twisty Rubik's cube types count as those.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
That's also you've got these pieces that fit together into
a cube, but then you take them apart and they're
weird shaped and you gotta forget it together.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
A wire puzzles, those are a big thing. And yeah,
they're very fun.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
All right. Two more items. In Singapore, which is landlocked
but not doesn't border anything else because it's an island.
Singapore is a unique country that is also a city,
right the city and the capital of Singapore, and the
country is Singapore. It's the whole deal. The Vogue, the
Vogue edition that is published in Singapore, had a feature
(12:00):
about the iconic low puzzle bag Loewe. It's an iconic
fashion accessory that gets its name from its its sort
of cuboid form. But it's just it's reassembled like a
three dimensional puzzle. So all these little triangular leather pieces
are put together to make this beautiful bag. Hard to
(12:22):
describe in words, but you can see it online. Maybe
you own one. It's the tenth anniversary of the edition
of this bag.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
And it's only eighty two thousand dollars exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
You can either buy a castle in Italy the Houser puzzles,
or you can get the puzzle bag. Either will work.
So finally, the whole point of this is that I
caught a Medium post this week about a classic math
problem that wraps this up this around the world segment
rather aptly.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I'm ready for the aptness.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
So imagine you have a rope that encircles the globe
uh to the surface. Right now, you have to imagine
that for the person of this puzzle, that the Earth
is actually a perfect flat sphere all the way around.
There's no mountains or valleys or anything. It's just a
perfect earthly sphere.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Got it.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Okay, So you've got a rope that's tight to the surface.
It's about twenty five thousand miles or forty million meters long.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
That's how long that rope would have to be, right right.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Now, Suppose you're gonna add two meters of length to
the rope. You're gonna cut it. You're gonna get a
two meter segment that's about six feet or so inserted
into the rope. Yes, so now it's forty million plus
two meters long. Okay, it's gonna get looser, right, It's
gonna get looser. The question is how much looser will
it get? How far off the surface of the Earth
(13:47):
will the rope rise?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
That is I have heard this probably like three times.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Okay, and I'm gonna give you the multiple choice.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Okay, remember one, I've forgotten that every time.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Does it rise and just enough to fit a couple
of molecules under.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, okay, enough.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
To slide a playing card under, yeah, enough to crawl under,
or enough to walk under?
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Oh oh, all right, well, Andrea Associate puzzler Andrea is here.
I'm guessing I could try to reason and think about geometry,
but instead I'm gonna be lazy. I'm gonna say it's
probably not the playing card and the dime, because that's
what you expect, and that wouldn't be a very fun puzzle, right, I.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Said playing card, and I said molecules are enough to
walk under? Right?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Well I would say yes, and.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
See you're too clever about this, aren't you.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
So I'm gonna say it's either crawl under or walk under.
The most surprising with the walk under, but I feel
that it would raise maybe two feet would be in
a simp. I would say crawl, but that's just what
do you got? Andrea? Are you with me or against me?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
I'll I'll just choose the one you don't choose, and
then we cover our faces and we can share the win.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Well, there were for I thought it, but we but
we got rid of the first two. I see, Okay,
so I'm going to crawl under and you can have
walk on all right, So.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
You're telling me you got a forty million meter rope.
You add two meters to it, and it's bigger than
just a playing card.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
It makes no sense. It makes no sense. But I
also know it would be a very boring puzzle.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Is it's enough to crawl under it rises about a
foot off the surface.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
And how does that work?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
So here's how this works. The circumference of a circle,
the length all the way around it is two times
pie times the radius. Radius is the distance from the
center to the edge. That's the formula for that, right right.
If you add a foot to the radius, right, the
(15:55):
radius is a foot longer, then you are expanding it
by two times pie times one foot. Two times pie
is about three point one four right, so it's just
over six meters six feet. Rather that you would expand
the circumference when you add a foot to the radius. Okay,
and six feet is about two meters. So conversely, if
(16:17):
you add that two meters to the circumference, the radius
expands by a foot. It doesn't matter how big the
original circle is. The original circle could be around your head,
it could be around the globe, whatever it is, it
expands the radius by a foot when you add two
meters to the circumference.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Love it well. Thank you for the trip around the world.
Have a great weekend folks, wherever you are on the
globe or wherever you are going. And if you have
a puzzle, need a puzzle fix, then check out the
puzzle er Instagram feed at Hello Puzzles. We got brand
new puzzles, visual puzzles, lots of fun stuff and we
(16:58):
will see you here on Monday for more puzzling puzzles
that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Hello puzzlers, it's Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer, here
with the extra credit answer from our previous episode. AJ
played some games with the wonderful and punny Ben Bass,
and all the answers in this puzzle are forward phrases
that all start with the same letter, like Ben Bass's
brass band. They also happen to be tongue twisters. Try
(17:32):
saying that five times fast. Your clue is this. This
is what the singer of What's Love Got to do
with It uses in her chemistry lab, and that of
course is Tina Turner's test tube. Who that is a
tongue Twister. Thanks for playing along with us, and we'll
see you here next time. Thanks for playing along with
(17:54):
the team here at The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs, I'm
Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer. Our executive producers are
Neelie Lohman and Adam Newhouse of New House Ideas and
Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced by
Jody Averragan and Brittany Brown of Roulette Productions, with production
support from Claire Bidegar Curtis. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
(18:19):
The Puzzler with Aj Jacobs is a co production with
New House Ideas and is distributed by Therapist Coda No No, No,
No No, Rearrange those letters distributed by iHeart Podcasts. If
you want to know more about puzzling puzzles, please check
out the book The Puzzler by AJ Jacobs, a history
of puzzles that The New York Times called fun and funny.
(18:42):
It features an original puzzle hunt by yours truly, and
is available wherever you get your books and puzzlers. For
all your puzzling needs, go visit the Puzzler dot com.
See you there,
Hosts And Creators
Greg Pliska
A.J. Jacobs
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