Deep Cut

Puzzler time.

This is a deep cut, my friends. Only the most hardcore Car Talk fans will get this.

Here it is.

This was sent in many years ago from a listener who was vacationing in Europe.

He said this:

"While driving around Luxembourg on a trip to Europe, I caught a glimpse of a billboard that immediately brought Car Talk to mind. The billboard was brightly colored with a cartoon like a pig on the bottom. But it wasn't just a pig that brought Car Talk to mind. Across the center of the sign was written an equation.

D equals V over 10, squared. The whole thing divided by two. So V over 10, squared. Divide V by 10. Square it. Divide that whole thing by two.

Remembering a discussion on the show of several years ago, I immediately knew what this was all about."

And the puzzler question is, what was it about?

Good luck!

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

Saving Water

Puzzler time.

Here we go.

Sometime in the late 1930's, German aeronautical engineers were working on a device. Perhaps engineers from other countries were doing the same thing.

So this device did the following. It took water vapor, which is one of the products of a gasoline engine combustion, and it would condense it into water and save it.

You might say, well, not such a big deal. However, it would save the water in an interesting way. It would save it in such a way that the amount of water saved would be exactly the equivalent in weight as the amount of fuel that the engine burned.

So as the engine burned a pound of fuel or kilogram of fuel, this device would save a pound of water and
discard the rest. This way, the plane would always weigh the same amount.

And the puzzler is, why would you want to do this?