Nonsense Pressure

It is time for an interesting new puzzler. I like this one! I hope you will too.

Anyway, here it is!

I was at the gas station a while back, with my son, when he was younger. I was putting gas in the car, like I always do.

And then my son says, "Daddy, how does the thing know when to shut off?"

Good question, I thought. We all know that when you're pumping gas, and the tank is all filled up, the handle flops down and it stops. The gas shuts off. So, I said some nonsense answer about pressure and you put the gas in and the air comes out... But it was not a good answer, because I didn't understand it myself. I couldn't really explain it to him because I couldn't explain it to myself.

So, I had to go into the archives and I found a letter that someone wrote in, asking this question. And I didn't answer it well then either. Because I didn't understand it then either!

So, it is time to answer this, once and for all.

So the question is, how does it work? What happens?

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

A Very Hot Day

New puzzler time.

It was a very hot day. Not a dark and stormy night, but a very hot day. So the opposite of a dark and stormy night.

We got two letters about this a while ago. Two different types of cars had this happen, but the type of car doesn't matter in this case. Anyway, here goes.

This fellow was driving his car on the highway on this very hot day. He was driving a long distance on this hot day. And there had been a thunderstorm earlier in the day. He had driven through the thunderstorm, but it was so hot, the rain did not cool anything down. So he's driving along, and finally exits the highway. He gets off the highway, onto a secondary road, and then pulls into a strip mall parking lot.

He pulls into this parking lot very quickly, and as soon as he does, the engine stops. It just cuts out, right there. So he turns the key and tries to start it again, but it is dead. Nothing. It's like someone has removed his battery from the car, just like that. The lights on the dash all work, but the car won't start. He doesn't know what happened.

He opens the hood and everything looks normal. His headlights work, and his radio works. But he turns the key and nothing happens. So he calls the tow truck. They take the car to the nearest dealership. And they tell him, "You've got troubles. You need an engine." And they tell him what caused this is turning into the strip mall. That is when it happened.

So, here is the puzzler question. What happened, and how. Good luck!