The Tracks

Puzzler time!

This one has to do with railroads.

So we had a guy go out and measure the distance between railroad tracks. That is what we asked for.

We asked him to measure from the middle of the track to the middle of the other track, and find out what that distance is, because we wanted to know if there was any relevance to the distance.

He couldn't find any railroad tracks. But he did find subway tracks. He noted that the distance between tracks, between the middle of the track and the middle of the parallel track, is, on average, four feet, 11 and three quarter inches.

And I thought, what kind of a number is that? Four feet, 11 and three quarter inches?

And the puzzler question is very simply is, where did they get this four feet, 11 and three quarter inches figure? And feel free to go back in history as far as necessary, because they have this in England, but we want to know where they got it from too.

Good luck.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

The Assembly Line

Here it is.

Back in the 1990s, there were some factories in Russia, and maybe in other countries as well, where the people working on the assembly line, are wearing diving suits. The old time diving suits with the big metal masks and the hoses and stuff.

That's what these workers are wearing as they go about their their jobs.

Yet they never go in the water.

The question is, why?