The Sun and the Moon

Puzzler time.

This one is not automotive, at all. It is celestial, you might say. Here we go.

Everyone knows that from the planet earth, the moon and the sun appear to be about the same size. I mean, even though we know they're not the same size, to the casual observer from our vantage point, they're about the same size when we look at them up in the sky.

This is why we get to see such amazing things like eclipses.

Now, knowing this, you can take, for example, the tip of your finger, and hold your hand up, you can close one eye, and you can block out the sun with your finger. From your vantage point on earth, we know you can do this. (We are not recommending you try this! Just take our word for it. You should not try to look at the sun...)

However, you go out at night and you hold that same finger up in front of the moon and close one eye, and you can't block out the moon.

So, you can block out the sun with that finger, but you can't block out the moon.

Why is that?

Good luck.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

The Old Headlight

Many years ago, I went on a vacation to Cape Cod. Took a few weeks off to just be up in Cape Cod.

And during that vacation I was able to go to a yard sale in the area. It was a big old house where they had a barn with a bunch of old junk in there, wagons and baby carriages and all this stuff that they were going to throw out.

There was a lot of automotive stuff in the yard sale too. And in sifting through the tables of stuff, I found one very interesting item. It was a headlight, half of which had been painted with black paint. This thing was painted black on half of the front part, half the lens. So, I looked around to see if I could find the other one, since they are supposed to come in pairs. But I couldn't find it. This thing was a very old headlight, and it was a 6 volt headlight.

So, that means at the time, it was at least 45 years old, though now it would be considered ancient!

So, the puzzler question is, why was this very old 6 volt headlight painted black?

Note, the answer has nothing to do with running out of paint!

And a hint, you're not be likely to find one of these in a similar yard sale in a place like Ohio...