Earlier today, we presented three puzzles from the book 'Tasty Japanese Morsels in Recreational Mathematics'. Here are the solutions.
The first puzzle involves two octopuses boxing, each needing eight gloves of the same colour. With 16 red and 16 green gloves in a bag, the minimum number to draw to guarantee both octopuses can wear gloves of the same colour is 23. This ensures at least seven of one colour and eight of the other, allowing both to wear either red or green.
The second puzzle is a multiplication problem where digits are replaced by stars. By logical deduction, the values are: H=1, I=0, F=9, A=4, C=2, D=9, J=2, E=2, G=2, B=6. The full computation is reconstructed accordingly.
The third puzzle asks for Bento boxes with eight square sections in different rectangular shapes. Solutions include a 4×6 box, a 3×9 box, and a 5×6 box, each divided into eight squares of possibly different sizes.
These puzzles are from the book published by the American Mathematical Society. The next puzzle will appear in two weeks.
