It’s the Friday Puzzle!

Last week’s puzzle resulted in an especially large response, with over 100 comments on the probability of Albert’s brother being a boy.  I am still not certain we have it sorted, so feel free to continue to comment.

This week’s offering comes from talented puzzle expert Barry R. Clarke….

What large capital letter should be placed to the right of the bottom left point to label the graph correctly?

My thanks to Barry for letting me reproduce the puzzle.  As ever, please do not post any solutions but feel free to say if you think you have an answer and how long it took.  Solution on Monday.

Mystery twitter experiment

Today I put out a message on Twitter announcing a special project that will take place next week. I have teamed up with New Scientist Magazine to stage the first mass participation study via Twitter. This will build on some of my other large-scale work, including the scientific search for the world’s funniest joke, and experiments into the psychology of lying. The actual experiment will be announced on Monday, and take place throughout the rest of the week. If you want to participate simply join my Twitter stream at https://twitter.com/richardwiseman. We really do need as many people as possible to participate, so feel free to spread the word.

Turin Shroud Duvet Cover

I came across this rather lovely duvet cover yesterday. Basically, it contains life-size images of a naked man and woman, allowing you to stick your head over the top and laugh the night away. It gave me an idea. One could use the same technique to produce a duvet cover containing a life-size image of the Turin Shroud, allowing people to spend the night under Jesus. I am not sure who owns the image, but I don’t think there would be any copyright problems. So, time for some market research. Assuming that both the naked duvet and Turin Shroud duvet were the same price, which would you buy and why?

Patricia Putt Replies

A few weeks ago I teamed up with Chris French and the good folk from Goldsmith’s APRU to test medium Patricia Putt (details here). We were carrying out an initial test for the James Randi 1 million dollar challenge, and Patricia was asked to write down readings for ten women. These ten participants were then given copies of the readings and asked to choose the one that best described them. None of them chose the correct reading.

At the time I was really impressed that Patricia didn’t make any excuses, and said that she thought it had been a fair test. However, yesterday she appears to have changed her mind and left a long comment on the blog. You can read the whole thing under the comments section of the above link (and look at Phil Plait’s comments about it here), but I just wanted to pick up on a couple of points…

Patricia: After my initial shock at the results when Professor French was showing them to me….

Actually, I went through the results with Patricia, not Chris.

Patricia: …he [Wiseman] remembered on seeing me that we had met in May 2000 at Hampton Court ..

Actually, I explicitly told Patricia that I didn’t remember that.

Patricia: I also got the meet Professor French a man I had seen on TV and have great respect for, I also renewed my meeting with Professor Wiseman.

Fair point.

Patricia: …with hindsight I realised that every girl had accepted each and every message that I had written down not one had been discarded, not one thrown away each and every one of the ten girls had gone away with something to me this makes a total of 10 out of 10.

This is very silly. The participants were asked to choose the reading that best applied to them, so that fact that they each chose one is meaningless. The important point is that they did not choose the reading that was intended for them.

Patricia: I am very well aware that scientists and Mediums are diametrically opposed but perhaps one day scientists will open up their field of vision a bit more and be prepared to work with people such as myself.

We just did.

Patricia ends by challenging Chris French and I to another test that involves her being taken to a location she has never been to before. If Patricia has this new claim accepted by James Randi then I am sure that Chris and I can sort something out.

I was impressed that Patricia went through with the test and took the results so well on the day. It was a good natured investigation, we all parted on good terms and I wish her well in the future.

Update: A few people have emailed me asking whether Patricia’s comments mean that each participant chose a different reading (i.e., no two participant chose the same reading as theirs).  This is not the case.  The list of participants, and the readings they chose, was as follows….

Participant  number                    Chose of the reading of participant number

11                                                      9

1                                                       7

14                                                     7

13                                                     8

9                                                      11

8                                                      2

7                                                      1

6                                                      13

3                                                      13

2                                                     6

(note: although we had 10 participants, they were chosen from a pool of 15 people, thus having participant numbers higher than 10).

What is the best way of tackling astrology?

Last week I was invited on BBC Radio 5 to debate astrology. I have done lots and lots of these types of shows in my time, and they usually dissolve into a ‘there is no scientific evidence’ vs ‘but my clients tell me I am accurate’ debate. This time I thought it might be interesting to make the scientific case in a somewhat more forceful way. So, when the astrologer said that they were aware of compelling scientific evidence for their art, I decided to press the issue. In the end, I asked the ‘Which studies do you find convincing?’ question six times. I was a bit disappointed that the host made us move on, but do find the whole thing quite fuuny….

The clip has had a mixed reaction. Some people think that I came across as rude, and that open minded listeners would have sided with the astrologer. Others have said that I seemed firm but fair, and that it helped make the skeptical position more convincing. What do you think? Does this type of approach help or hinder the public understanding of science?

Answer to the Friday puzzle!

On Friday i presented everyone with this lovely puzzle…

Mrs Brown has two children. One of them is a boy called Albert. What is the probability of her other child also being a boy?

If you didn’t try to solve it, have a go now. For everyone else, the answer is after the break.

It’s the Friday puzzle!

This week it is a lovely problem, courtesy of my pal Mike…..

Mrs Brown has two children. One of them is a boy called Albert. What is the probability of her other child also being a boy?

As ever, feel free to say if you think you have solved it and how long it took, but please don’t post your solution. Have a good weekend. Answer on Monday, and a big announcement towards the end of next week!

Amazing trick shot

Today I was searching for You Tube videos that inadvertently demonstrate scientific principles, and came across this amazing clip illustrating key principles in momentum and mechanics. I think it would be fun to have kids watch it and write about the principles involved….

What thinks you? Any other suggestions for non-science clips full of science?

Update: uksceptic posted this great video….

and Cam posted….

and EmilyT added…

Unfortunate book titles

Thanks to everyone who posted about the ‘book’ illustration yesterday.  Interestingly, I don’t think that there was a sex split, with about 60% of both men and women seeing the book first.  Talking of books, my latest offering comes out in the UK in July.  Whilst deciding on a title, I looked around for books with unusual and unfortunate titles, and came across this wonderful page from the Oddee blog containing several jaw-dropping examples.  Here are my favourite two….

What’s the worst or best book title you have ever come across?

What do you see when you look at this?

Rob Jenkins has just sent me this lovely optical illusion. What is the first thing you see when you look at this?

I am all curious to discover if men and women see the picture differently, so please say whether you are male or female and what you saw when you first encountered the image….

Answer to the Friday puzzle

On Friday i described another classic puzzle….

A hunter walked one mile south from his camp. Then he walked one mile west. There he shot a bear. Then he walked one mile north, and found that he was back at his camp. What colour was the bear?

How did you do?  If you did not try to solve it, give it a go now.  Answer after the break…

It’s the Friday puzzle!

It’s going to be a weekend of talks. I am speaking at Oxford Science Live on Saturday and then giving a ’sermon’ on humour at the School of Life in London on Sunday. Hope that you can make it.

OK, onto the puzzle. This week it is another classic….

A hunter walked one mile south from his camp. Then he walked one mile west. There he shot a bear. Then he walked one mile north, and found that he was back at his camp. What colour was the bear?

As ever, feel free to say if you have solved it and how long it took, but please don’t post your solution. Answer on Monday. Have a good one.

Atheist Assemblies

It is no big secret that I am an atheist (well, it’s not now). In England it is a legal requirement that schools have a daily “act of collective worship”, with the majority of these being “wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character”.

It is always a bit of an issue about how atheists respond to these assemblies. Under the law, any child can leave, but that can make them feel a bit like a social outcast. One idea I had a few years ago was to come up with alternative science-based activities for atheists (‘You can stay and pray or watch Mrs Henderson walk barefoot across burning coals’, or ‘We will now all sing a hymn…or you can go and see Mr Jones eat a lightbulb’).

A few days ago a friend of mine mentioned that he was trying to persuade his local school to have a one-off atheist assembly, and wanted to come up with appropriate content. It would, he thought, be nice to have something inspirational and uplifting, yet with a serious message. Perhaps something that lays out a moral message outside a religious context.

My thought was that for the right age group, you could do a lot worse than read Kipling’s poem, IF. If you need your memory refreshing, this clip starts with a great rendition of it…

What do you think? Any other suggestions for other material for my friend?

Playing with your food

Last week I was interviewed on Skepticality, and very pleasant it was too (the pics on their site make me look short – in reality I am 6ft 5in).  During the interview Swoopy suggested that it might be possible to build an Othello set (also known as ‘Reversi’) from a Battenburg cake and mini Jaffa cakes.  The bad news is that I have since tried this, and the mini Jaffa cakes are too large.  However, the better news is that mini chocolate digestives work very well..

Additional research has shown that it is also possible to construct a game of Snakes and Ladders from a Battenburg cake, jelly snakes and a Curly Wurly (thanks Emma).

Regular readers of this blog will know that all of this builds on my previous work exploring how to construct a chess set from marshmallows and a Jenga set from kit-kats.

Any other ideas for such things?

Amazing street art

I am a big fan of optical illusions created in unusual settings, and have just seen this wonderful example from artist Edgar Mueller (thanks Neil). Mueller apparently spent five days, working 12 hours a day, to create a huge image of a crevasse and then invited passers-by to pretend the hole was real.

What do you think? Any other ideas for this type of work? How about a huge zip running up a street?

UPDATE: Great video of the process here (thanks Gareth)…