Broken Brakes

It is finally time for the new puzzler. This one is a true automotive puzzler. I think we owe the crowd an actual automotive puzzler, at this point.

Here's one from the old days. A customer came into the shop a while back. This customer had various problems with his car, one of which was a problem that he had taken to several shops and nobody was able to figure out. It was that when he went on long drives, he would frequently lose his brakes. In other words, the pedal would feel very mushy and would just sink to the floor, and the brakes would be completely ineffective. He had taken the car to several shops over the course of several months and nobody had been able to figure it out. Including us. We couldn't figure it out either.

Parts had been replaced, master cylinders, calipers... This guy had spent so much on this, and he still had the problem. No one knew what was wrong.

Anyway, he comes in and says, "Hey, I need an oil change, I need to pass state inspection, tires rotated and I have some lights that don't work... If you're interested, you can look at that brake problem again."

And we said, "No, no. We don't know what's wrong with the brakes."

So, we fixed all the other problems, including his brake lights, which were not working. We fixed it by putting a new brake light switch in, but we didn't even look at the actual brakes. We didn't have time for going over that again. We changed the oil and did everything else he asked.

And then, about a week or two later he called us and said, "How did you fix my brakes?"

And we said, "What do you mean, how did we fix your brakes? We didn't fix your brakes."

And he said, "Well, that problem I had where the brakes would just disappear, it's gone. it isn't a problem anymore. What did you do?"

And we said, "We did nothing!"

So, he drives the car for several more weeks, and indeed, the problem is fixed. The problem never returned.

So the puzzler question is, what did we do that day that accidentally fixed his brakes?

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

Tulip Poplar Trivia

Some years ago my wife and I took a trip down the east coast, from Boston all the way down south. So during that drive, somewhere around the state of West Virginia, I got the notion that I wanted to take a detour and explore an abandoned mine. They have all those old coal mines down that way. So we stopped and I hired a guide to take me through a couple of these old abandoned mines.

So this guide takes me through a couple of mines. So my only experience with mines is what I know from those old westerns where the mines, the walls, and the roofs of the mines were shored up with timbers. And I was very surprised to find out that they still did that, at the time. Maybe they don't now, I don't know. But they did then.

So, I asked the guide what kind of wood they used for the walls and roofs, and the timbers we were looking at. Because I didn't recognize it. And he said he didn't know any specifics about how they built the mines, he just knew how to get in and out, and give tours walking through it.

I walked through a few other mines in the area and they all seemed to have the same sort of wood used in the tunnels to shore up the mine themselves. I would have thought they would have used oak or ash, as those are very strong types of wood. But no. People in the area said they thought it was the tulip poplar that was used. And apparently, poplar is the only type of wood they use to shore up these mines.

So here is the question.

Why do they use poplar for this? Why wouldn't they use a stronger wood like oak or ash?

There's a very good reason why only this kind of wood is used.

Why?