130 Geometrical Problems
- FOLDING POSTAGE STAMPS
1 2 3 -it
5 6 7 8
If you have eight postage stamps,
4 by 2, as in the diagram, it is very
interesting to discover the various
ways in which they can be folded so
that they will lie under one stamp, as
shown. I will say at once that they
can actually be folded in forty differ-
ent ways so that number 1 is face up-
wards and all the others invisible
beneath it. Numbers 5, 2, 7, and 4
will always be face downwards, but
you may arrange for any stamp except
number 6 to lie next to number 1,
though there are only two ways each
in which numbers 7 and 8 can be
brought into that position. From a
little law that I discovered, I was
convinced that they could be folded
in the order 1, 5, 6, 4, 8, 7, 3, 2, and
also 1, 3, 7, 5, 6, 8, 4, 2, with number
I at the top, face upwards, but it puz-
zled me for some time to discover
how.
Can the reader so fold them with-
out, of course, tearing any of the per-
foration? Try it with a piece of paper
well creased like the diagram, and
number the stamps on both sides for
convenience. It is a fascinating puzzle.
Do not give it up as impossible!- COUNTER SOLITAIRE
This simplification of the board of the old game of solitaire lends itself to
many entertaining little pastimes of patience. Copy the simple diagram on a
sheet of paper or cardboard and use sixteen counters, numbered and placed
as shown. The puzzle is to remove all but one counter by a succession of leaps.
A counter can leap over another adjoining it to the next square beyond,
if vacant, and in making the leap you remove the one jumped over. But no
leap can be made in a diagonal direction.
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