by Matthew Cobb
Many people around the world will be eating more chocolate than usual over the next few days. This popped up in my Twitter feed, from magician @RichardWiseman, re-tweeted by mathematician and science-writer @SLSingh:
[Yes, I know it’s a very old puzzle]
JAC: The solution is here.
Watch the bottom left segment of the top half as it’s moving to the right. It grows longer!
Thx!!
No, I don’t see it. I grabbed the gif, and I can see it frame by frame. I swear I see no piece getting longer. I might start believing in the supernatural unless someone helps me out.
I got it. Ok, I believe in one reality again.
Just draw the shape, cut it as seen being cut, relocate the pieces and see for yourself the missing segment at the top of shape after being put together. it is 25% shorter from the entire top which when multiplied by 4 we come up with one whole square.
Mmmm, perpetual chocolate!
Should have been a scene in the original Willy Wonka and chocolate factory with Gene Wilder. All the kids and townsfolk’s the parents would gather around Wilder as he ate that chocolate bar. (The oompah loom took that movie down a notch.)
A scene scored from either a Bernard Herman All the way to Jerry Goldmith, throw in Stephen Sondhein SOMEBODY to score that Scene (a world of pure imagination . . . Plus another scene with a kind/good natured goofy toothless mathematician (edendtulous from too much chocolate > tooth decay) who is in charge of chocolate production.
Explaining it all it to Baruca Salt (whatever her name in the movie)
Well, in my edited version of the movie, anyway.
Thx for all the kisses — i. e. in an Chocolate kiss version of that candy bar.
Could work for Hershey’s or in next years Valentine’s day commercial.
Verruca Salt.
It means ‘wart’.
Completely un-related to chocolate, but I’m just hearing on the telly a legend (?) of an offensive minister of religion who annoyed some Highlanders sufficiently that they stripped him naked and staked him out to be eaten by the midges.
Now that is a truly frightening idea.
What’s this in the fridge? Pain-au-chocolate! Yummy!
In my mouth, are you kidding?
Milk chocolate. Meh.
This is the most persuasive demonstration that a benevolent God exists, that I have ever seen.
Can we really say that small squares of delicious milk chocolate, now existent, which were not a moment before, necessarily break the Laws of Nature if the Universe in which we live was fine-tuned to create scrumptious Belgian milk chocolate?
Lord of the Perpetual Heavenly Milk sign me up.
The pieces don’t get longer as they move, but when they ‘snap’ into place they don’t actually fit, they just look as if they do. If you look at the angular cut on the left piece that slides up, it wouldn’t actually make up whole chocolate rectangles if you just slid it up. If you download the GIF and look at the second frame it’s obvious.
The big piece that is moved up to the right
has on the right hand side a smaller height than it should have. If we use 1×2 blocks
for one piece of chocolate, the piece that is moved has on the right hand side height 2,5, but it should have height 3.
The answer is in the geometry of the diagonal cut, which goes from (0, 1.5) to (5, 3.5) in chocolate-square coordinates, for a slope of 2/5.
So when the three-square-wide fragment moves two squares to the right, it rises 4/5 of a row — not a full row. Similarly, moving the two-square-wide fragment three squares to the left drops it 6/5 rows.
The result is that the new middle row is only 80% of a row in height (although the animation cheats and shows it as a full row). The other 20% goes into the leftover square (which is 1/5 of a row).
Good explanation!
The final block is shorter than the original.
I traced the image on my screen and cut out the pieces.
If you take the “extra” piece and cut it into three narrow strips, it fits along the top.
? A more precise way of testing that would be to simply leave your cursor on the top right corner. You’ll notice that there is not even a pixel of change in the proportions of the bar. By area, you have exactly the same amount of chocolate before as you did after. Yet you have eaten a piece. You can only conclude that chocolate is added while the pieces are being moved.
I hate to be the Grinch That Stole Easter, just please remember that chocolate should be FAIR TRADE and use no palm oil or palm products. Natural Chocolate needs a bit of sugar, some milk and butter to taste good, but can be good for us. If eaten in moderation, very dark chocolate could be linked to assisting with depression, lower lipids, even in a couple of studies lower BMI.
It’s a bit of a stretch to say that chocolate needs milk and butter to taste good. In fact my local grocery carries several brands of excellent dairy-free chocolate.
Trix are for kids….silly wabbit.
Richard Wiseman isn’t just a magician, he’s a psycholgist. He wrote a book called ‘Paranormality’ which I’d recommend to all atheists.
Hey there just wanted to give you a quick heads up and let you know a few of the pictures aren’t loading properly. I’m not sure why but I think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different internet browsers and both show the same results.|
http://i.imgur.com/nA53dlx.gif