The Curve

Time for the latest puzzler. This one is more for children. But adults can certainly take part, if they like.

Here we go.

Imagine two telephone poles, each one is 50 feet tall.

There is a chain that connects from the top of one telephone pole to the top of the other telephone pole. This piece of chain is 100 feet long.

So, a rope or chain that hanges between two points forms a mathematical curve, known as a catenary, which comes from a Latin word catena or catenaria, which means 'chain.'

The question very simply is, what must be the distance between these two telephone poles so that the lowest point of the chain just touches the ground?

Good luck everyone.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

A Okay

Puzzler time.

Here we go.

This was many years ago. It was a cold and dreary day in Wisconsin. A young nursing student pulled out of the university parking lot. She was driving a 1972 Ford Galaxie 500, and it was a jalopy, to be sure. Her dad had put patches on the holes in the body work, and welded the bumper back on when it had fallen off, but it was reliable transportation, and her meager student budget would not allow for anything else.

She came to a stoplight on the way home and she began to slow down, she applied the brakes to slow down. All of a sudden, they locked up. She skidded to a stop, heads turned, and she knew that obviously something was wrong. She was embarrassed and perplexed and obviously afraid. She proceeded down the road slowly. At the next light, even after applying the brakes very cautiously and slowly again, something locked up and the car skidded, even with the gentlest touch of the brake pedal. It was scary for her.

So she takes the car to the repair shop, and they pull the wheels off, and they check the calipers, and they check the wheel cylinders, and the brake spring hardware, and they check the brake hoses and they pronounce everything with the brake system is A Okay.

And in fact, they were right, everything with the brake system is A Okay.

So, the puzzler question is, what is wrong with her car?