New_Scientist_11_2_2019

52 | New Scientist | 2 November 2019

The back pages Puzzles

Quick crossword #44 Set by Richard Smyth Quick quiz #27 Puzzle set by Chris Healey

#28 A well-timed nap

I keep an analogue clock by my bed.

One afternoon, I had a nap. When I drifted

off to sleep, the minute hand was pointing

directly at one of the 12 numbers on the

clock face, and the number of minutes

past the hour was exactly the same as

the angle (in degrees) between the

hour and minute hands.

Later that day, when I woke up, I noticed

the same was true again.

How long had I been asleep?

Answer next week

#27 The goblin game

Solution

To have the best chance of winning,

Beth should place her goblin on square 6.

The average score on a die numbered 1 to

6 is 3.5, so in the long run, the chance of a

counter landing on a square is going to be

1 in 3.5, which is about 29 per cent. This

will be the chance of the counter landing

on all of the high numbers on the board.

However, the odds are different in the early

stages. Squares 1 to 6 can all be reached

with a single roll of the die (a 16 per cent

chance), but square 2 can also be reached

by rolling 1 and 1, for example. By the time

you get to square 6, there are numerous

ways of reaching it, and the odds of landing

on 6 work out to be about 36 per cent.

Squares 7 and above can only be reached

by landing on one of squares 1 to 6 first,

which lowers the odds. Indeed, the odds

of landing on a number higher than 6 are

always below 30 per cent.

1 Which is the longest of

the cranial nerves emerging

from the human brain,

transmitting signals to

and from organs including

the heart, lungs and gut?

2 Four of the 1 2 cranial

nerves deal with the

workings of just one

organ. Which?

3 The vestibulocochlear

nerve transmits information

from the ear to the brain

concerning hearing and

which other sense?

4 Which is the largest

of all the cranial nerves,

primarily concerned with

transmitting sensory and

motor information to and

from the mouth and face?

5 Crosstalk between

this nerve and the optic

nerve is thought to cause

what response to sudden

exposure to sunlight, found

in up to a quarter of people?

Answers below

Cryptic

Crossword #17

Answers

ACROSS 1  Lambda, 4  Specie,

9  Reactor,  10 Prong, 11  Noses,

12  Dissect, 13  Smithsonian,

18  Eclipse, 20  Stove, 22  Rhino,

23  Cordite, 24  Convex,

25  Amoeba

DOWN 1  Larynx, 2  Means,

3  Dataset, 5  Pepys, 6  Cholera,

7  Eighty, 8  Iridescence, 14  Million,

15  Nostrum, 16  Metric,

17  Oedema, 19  Phone,

21  Oxide

Quick quiz #27

Answers

The vagus nerve 1

The eye 2

Balance 3

The trigeminal nerve 4

Sneezing 5

 



 

 

  



  



  

 

 

ACROSS

1 Shoreline (8)

5 Presence of urea

in the blood (6)

10 Openings that may be

blind or through (5)

(^11) this (9)
12 Language invented
by L. L. Zamenhof (9)
13 Erasable, programmable
read-only memory (5)
14 Forest-savannah ,
transitory ecoregion (6)
15 Hydrocarbon pipeline (3,4)
18 Palpebrae (7)
20 Berry-like cell cluster (6)
22 Compound such as
tetrabromofluorescein,
used as a stain (5)
24 Flightless bird that
might be southern
or North Island (5,4)
25 number, 5i
for example (9)
26 Two acyl groups
bound to N (5)
27 Jellyfish life stage (6)
28 Video game such as
Mortal Kombat^ (4-2-2)
Answers and the next cryptic crossword next week.
DOWN
1 Tom , satirist and
mathematician (6)
2 Communication device
patented in 1876 (9)
3 Imbalance arising
where a data error affects
comparison groups to
an unequal degree (11,4)
4 As (7)
6 Annie Easley or Mary
Sherman Morgan,
for example (6,9)
7 Sid , inventor of the
video game Civilization (5)
8 Sb (8)
9 Rectangle (6)
16 Al (9)
17 Se (8)
19 Metro or U-bahn (6)
20 Painkiller (7)
21 Bilinear interpolation (6)
23 The ___ , 310-metre
London skyscraper (5)
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