Bonjour. First, could you give me 30 seconds of your time for a little survey that I am running? To take part, just click here. Many thanks.
OK, here is the Friday puzzle….can you add 5 lines to the image below to make the whole form nine? Oh, and can you add 3 lines to make it form eight?
As ever, please do not post your solution but do say if you have solved it and how long it took. Answer on Monday.
I have produced an ebook containing 101 of the previous Friday Puzzles! It is called PUZZLED and is available for the Kindle (UK here and USA here) and on the iBookstore (UK here in the USA here). You can try 101 of the puzzles for free here.
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September 30, 2011 at 7:01 am |
Done! That was easy!!!!
September 30, 2011 at 7:02 am |
Took me under 1 minute. very clever!
September 30, 2011 at 7:04 am |
Done almost immediately. And I’m not even awake yet… Well no fully…
September 30, 2011 at 7:09 am |
Is this turning into ‘puzzles for 5 year olds’?
September 30, 2011 at 7:10 am |
I can add two lines to form 9 :-/ And two lines to form eight.
September 30, 2011 at 7:20 am
Me too. Just add “X 1″ to the end and you’re done!
September 30, 2011 at 7:13 am |
done in 30 seconds… unless I got the wrong answer which is very likely since I’m a simple creature 0_o
September 30, 2011 at 7:18 am |
What is the value of pi in this puzzle? If it’s 3 that might be useful.
September 30, 2011 at 7:25 am |
Too easy. Got it in 20 seconds or so. First time I’ve done so fast though.
September 30, 2011 at 7:28 am |
I’m lost. Don’t even understand the question, I guess… Well, I had a good run the last few puzzles.
September 30, 2011 at 7:33 am |
Got it on first try set up for a good Friday now.
September 30, 2011 at 7:43 am |
Yes, done.
September 30, 2011 at 7:48 am |
There are multiple answers
September 30, 2011 at 7:57 am |
3 seconds
September 30, 2011 at 7:59 am |
Another oldie. Are we using safety matches or swan vestas?
September 30, 2011 at 8:06 am |
I got the “nine” as soon as I read it, the “eight” a short time after.
I can also get both nine and eight with only two lines.
September 30, 2011 at 8:07 am |
Got the nine instantly and about 4 minutes for the 8
September 30, 2011 at 8:56 am
About the same for me
September 30, 2011 at 1:16 pm
Ditto. Two methods for the 8.
September 30, 2011 at 8:08 am |
Tried to do the survey and when I hit “Finish” I get a dialog box asking if I want to submit my survey, I click OK and then nothing happens. It just keeps trying to connect to surveyshare but I finally gave up after a few minutes. Sorry…
September 30, 2011 at 8:09 am |
The first one was easy but got stuck with the second one. Not sure whether I’ve got the second solution.
September 30, 2011 at 8:14 am |
the first part was very easy, I got that as soon as I looked at it. I still don’t have the second part, but I’m sure it’s something equally silly and I’m just not seeing it yet
September 30, 2011 at 8:15 am |
Another vote for 9 by adding three lines and 8 by adding two, although it’s probably a barred solution given the question definition.
September 30, 2011 at 8:47 am |
Hijacking to talk about the survey….since it came out on the same email……!
I didn’t answer it. Maybe I am odd, but I won’t shell out 4 or 5 quid on a magazine because it has a pretty picture on the cover. I buy a magazine based on the contents. I therefore couldn’t answer the question as none of the covers would make me more likely to buy.
Am I alone? Does everyone else make their purchasing decisions based on the packaging over the content?
September 30, 2011 at 10:15 am
Well, I buy it based on the content, but the cover is what draws me in to take a second look at the content. I can see the picture while I’m browsing, I need to focus to read the text. If the picture inspires my curiosity, I’ll then look at the content.
September 30, 2011 at 9:06 am |
The survey…I just happen to like blue!!!!
September 30, 2011 at 9:08 am |
Found two completely different ways of doing the 9 straight away
September 30, 2011 at 9:18 am |
Even I can do that one! As quickly as counting to five.
September 30, 2011 at 9:30 am |
The nine is easy, but I can only do the eight with two lines…
September 30, 2011 at 9:38 am |
Made nine by adding five lines, then made eight by adding a further three lines. Is that right?
September 30, 2011 at 10:12 am
Oh, I can do it that way. Maybe that’s what he meant.
September 30, 2011 at 9:41 am |
“I buy a magazine based on the contents.” – so which cover’s representation of the magazine’s contents would make you most likely to buy the magazine? Surely you don’t read an entire magazine and then decide whether to buy it, so just saying you buy it based on the contents isn’t quite right. You buy it based on what your expectation of the contents is, presumably based on flicking through it. The question could be rephrased as “if these three magazines were available, and you had to buy one of them based only on the cover, which one would you buy?”
September 30, 2011 at 9:59 am
None of them. As far as I could see, each magazine had the same feature article, so I would buy it (or not) based on my interest in the article.
No, of course I don’t read the whole magazine before buying – I look at the contents page and read the summaries and decide if enough articles interest me.
To answer the revised question….still no opinion. If the magazine interested me, I would buy the copy that had the least “shelf wear” on it, regardless of the pretty pictures on the cover.
Like I said….maybe I’m the odd one out and there really are hordes of people who make their buying decision based mainly on the packaging. Personally, I value substance over style every time.
September 30, 2011 at 7:55 pm
A better way to say it would be, “Which cover makes you most likely to take a second look of the contents of the magazine?”
September 30, 2011 at 9:43 am |
do not understand the question.
i am irritated. had some luck on last puzzles
September 30, 2011 at 10:14 am |
I got it for nine in 20sec,
but eight is still waiting the answer after 5 minutes!!
Is the same logic behind?
September 30, 2011 at 10:40 am
now got it with 5 more min, with 2 or 3 further lines,…
but I’m not sure about the correctness of the answer gor eight,
looking forward for the solution on Monday!
September 30, 2011 at 10:41 am |
There was no “don’t care” option on the survey for Q2
September 30, 2011 at 10:44 am |
Nine is easy – but I’m struggling to find a use for the third line to produce eight.
I can produce eight by (a) adding two lines to the existing diagram, (b) adding two lines to the existing diagram and removing one of the existing lines, or (c) adding two lines to the nine produced in the first half of the puzzle.
September 30, 2011 at 10:53 am |
1st: 2 seconds
2nd: 20 seconds
September 30, 2011 at 10:54 am |
So what’s your favourite pizza topping?
September 30, 2011 at 10:58 am |
Nine fell into place as I read it, eight took longer,
I could add two lines and a circle to make a spider
September 30, 2011 at 11:10 am |
Ah …. now if I were a Frenchman, the solution to ‘eight’ would be ……. ?
September 30, 2011 at 11:31 am |
I don’t think I understand what the question means either. Is it to spell the words “nine” and “eight”? Cause nine is easy, but I don’t want to waste my time trying to find eight only to be told that the question was about something else.
September 30, 2011 at 11:59 am
You did the first one very quickly, good. Et je pense que tu peux faire l’autre tres vite aussi.
September 30, 2011 at 12:10 pm |
Super easy
September 30, 2011 at 1:10 pm |
Got the 1st part almost immediately. Then found, what I thought was a really cool solution for the 2nd part; but that only uses 2 additional lines.
September 30, 2011 at 1:10 pm |
uh (-_-)” I got the 9 in a few minutes but I don’t know how to make 8
September 30, 2011 at 1:19 pm |
Immediately for the 9. 8 took a few minutes. I also can add 2 lines and get 5 – two different ways!
September 30, 2011 at 1:28 pm |
Have answered both parts of this puzzle- finally. The nine was straight forward enough, the eight took some thinking about.
September 30, 2011 at 1:56 pm |
the Nine took about 45 sec. the Eight maybe 4 minutes.
I also was able to get an Eight with only 2 lines…
September 30, 2011 at 2:34 pm |
5 secs
September 30, 2011 at 4:00 pm |
I immediately remembered this one from when I was about seven.
September 30, 2011 at 6:18 pm |
Nine I got within 2 secs, eight I don’t see only when using only two lines…
September 30, 2011 at 7:08 pm |
‘nine’ was trivial and I saw it right away.
The only three-line ‘eight’ solution I see is one that abuses vector math notation so I’m not sure that was intended.
September 30, 2011 at 7:09 pm |
Today, I am officially quick, and – more to the point – almost certainly right! This is a first!
September 30, 2011 at 7:11 pm |
Oh flip! I got 8 (very quickly) using 2 lines! That’s a fail surely?? Bugger…
September 30, 2011 at 8:10 pm |
Yup,
Got this straight away.
I remembered it from long ago.
Not sure my 8 is legit but seems ok.
Malc
September 30, 2011 at 9:09 pm |
Ooh, found a way to make eight with just three lines (so not 5+3)!
September 30, 2011 at 11:48 pm |
Nine was almost instant. Eight took a couple minutes, but felt very satisfying once I caught it.
October 1, 2011 at 6:31 am |
I have found a way of getting 9 with four lines added, but not five. 1(11)1-1-1
October 1, 2011 at 1:51 pm |
the second one is harder
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I suddenly think of a puzzle
can you add exactly 4 lines to make this whole thing 8
October 1, 2011 at 6:30 pm |
about 30 seconds, including the eight one. A much better puzzle than last week’s!