The World's Greatest Riddle

[MrRubix]

Re: The World's Greatest Riddle

Well the torus is in place to simply allow the utility lines greater degrees of freedom as to where they can be set -- otherwise you can't do it without having the utility lines overlap.



Very crude example. Top half is a 2d plane, bottom half is an unfolded torus. As you can see, there is no way to have the third big box connect to all three little boxes without having crossover.

However, in the lower example with a torus, lines can wrap around and you are able to free up the lines.

[JKPolk]

Re: The World's Greatest Riddle

Why did the dead baby cross the road?

Answer's below, and please tell me I'm not the only one that'll get this reference.


Because he was stapled to the chicken.

[sjoecool1991]

Re: The World's Greatest Riddle

Only riddles I like working out are crazy long internet puzzles.
cleverwasteoftime and notpr0n are my favorites.
No, I have not even gotten close to solving them.

[MrRubix]

Re: The World's Greatest Riddle

I love notpron, zest, and other stuff like that Really fun riddles

[sc979]

Re: The World's Greatest Riddle

If you don't understand what a torus is, think of a world map. You can also model it that way. Basically, when you "leave" the top you end up at the bottom and vice-versa...

no. If you 'leave' a world map at the top, you do not end up at the bottom. You'll still be at the top, but on the latitude line 180 degrees away from where you started. You can get from Alaska to Russia by 'leaving' and 'entering' through the sides, but you don't automatically go from the Arctic to the Antarctic.

[devonin]

You should look into http://www.thestonemonument.com/ some time.

His example works more properly from the east-west perspective, which I think is sufficient to communicate the concept.

[rzr]

Re: The World's Greatest Riddle

I'm liking this, I should have made this thread long before. I'm going to re-name it but I need to figure out how first...

[MrRubix]

Re: The World's Greatest Riddle

no. If you 'leave' a world map at the top, you do not end up at the bottom. You'll still be at the top, but on the latitude line 180 degrees away from where you started. You can get from Alaska to Russia by 'leaving' and 'entering' through the sides, but you don't automatically go from the Arctic to the Antarctic.

Ah you're technically right -- I was thinking more about video game maps actually when I was thinking of my example, LOL, similar to something like FF7. Regardless a torus is still something where you're able to "wrap around" so to speak.

[devonin]

Re: The World's Greatest Riddle

What are you going to rename it? "Basic internet research deals with a whole pile of really smarmy "riddles" with no real answer"?

[Relambrien]

Re: The World's Greatest Riddle

Ah you're technically right -- I was thinking more about video game maps actually when I was thinking of my example, LOL, similar to something like FF7. Regardless a torus is still something where you're able to "wrap around" so to speak.

Haha, the primary game I think about in terms of that kind of world map is Skies of Arcadia, where you do the same thing. I remember playing it and wondering "This can't be right, the world only has one pole? Wait, I should end up over here...WHAT IS GOING ON"

I spent many a night unable to fall asleep, trying to figure out where the North Pole and South Pole were to create the effect that the game showed.

Anyway, both of the main riddles posted so far are fairly infamous. The utilities one especially. The original one is just one of a style of riddles designed to humiliate people, and a fairly common style. The answer is blatantly obvious if you let go of all bias, common sense, and presuppositions to see purely what the riddle says, which is difficult for any educated person to do.

The riddle can also be "solved" without having to let go of all bias simply by thorough examination of the riddle under the assumption that there is a trick in there somewhere. With this method, a good number of people, seeing the last line and studying it enough, will spot the trick and thus "solve" the riddle.

Anyway, on the topic of 4-dimensional objects. I, too, am limited in my imagination so that the only 4-dimensional shape I can truly "see" is a hypercube. I don't have the faintest idea what any others would look like. Though, shapes like this never cease to amaze me. On the other end of the spectrum, Mobius strips (I'm too lazy to find the character for the diaeresis), Klein bottles, etc. are really worth thinking about.

Now, I've never constructed a Mobius strip, but one problem I've always had with the instructions to make one. If you draw a line starting at one point around the strip, you eventually come back to that same point. However, if you start on the opposite "side" of the strip, wouldn't you come back to that same point on the opposite "side"? Doesn't this mean that your "mobius strip" still has two sides?

I'll have to make a strip myself to see exactly what's going on. And before someone ninjas this xkcd comic from me...

[ieatyourlvllol]

Re: The World's Greatest Riddle

Now, I've never constructed a Mobius strip, but one problem I've always had with the instructions to make one. If you draw a line starting at one point around the strip, you eventually come back to that same point. However, if you start on the opposite "side" of the strip, wouldn't you come back to that same point on the opposite "side"? Doesn't this mean that your "mobius strip" still has two sides?

Well, only if you think of it in the visual sense in which a given section upon which either point lies is perceived as an invertible plane (with the characteristic two sides). If you were to draw a single line parallel to the "edges", it would still go through both points before coinciding with itself to complete the continuity of the surface. Because a line cannot transcend its own dimensional limitations, the surface is then considered one-sided.

[foilman8805]

Re: The World's Greatest Riddle

Man, this thread kicks ****ing ass.

[Relambrien]

Re: The World's Greatest Riddle

Well, only if you think of it in the visual sense in which a given section upon which either point lies is perceived as an invertible plane (with the characteristic two sides). If you were to draw a single line parallel to the "edges", it would still go through both points before coinciding with itself to complete the continuity of the surface. Because a line cannot transcend its own dimensional limitations, the surface is then considered one-sided.

So basically, disregarding any visual discrepancies, the strip one-sided by definition. Works for me. And while visual issues could be worked out, the definition alone is enough to satisfy me.

[devonin]

Re: The World's Greatest Riddle

Well, just put your pencil down figureatively on the strip you posted from the xkcd, and see what would happen if you started to draw a line between the two edges of the paper, you loop around, go to the "other" side and then loop back and arrive at your starting point.

[flipsta_lombax]

Re: The World's Greatest Riddle

I'm liking this, I should have made this thread long before. I'm going to re-name it but I need to figure out how first...

There has been a thread like this before *le gasp* I even posted the same riddle. :O

http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/vbz/showpost.php?p=1192322&postcount=287

The riddle thread.

http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/vbz/showthread.php?t=58581

Cool beans.