Scotty Euclid: The Blog

Last week, I posted about a math toy that my wife purchased. I also posted three puzzles related to this toy. The first puzzle is reprinted below: Recently, my wife bought the following wooden toy from a clearance bin at Target. It's a set of six dials, rainbow-colored, that are connected by a wooden axle. The dials are shaped like decagons, and each side of the dial is painted as follows: The red dial: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 The orange dial: The following mathematical operators, in this order: +, -, x, +, -, x, +, -, x, +. Note that there are consecutive plus signs on the dial. The yellow dial: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 The green dial: The = sign appears on all sides The blue dial: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 The purple dial: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Randomly (and independently) spin each of the six dials of the toy. Look at the mathematical statement that appears on the top of the toy. What is the probability that the mathematical statement is correct? Here is how I...

Recently, my wife bought the following wooden toy from a clearance bin at Target. It's a set of six dials, rainbow-colored, that are connected by a wooden axle. Photo Credit: eBay The dials are shaped like decagons, and each side of the dial is painted as follows: The red dial: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 The orange dial: The following mathematical operators, in this order: +, -, x, +, -, x, +, -, x, +. Note that there are consecutive plus signs on the dial. The yellow dial: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 The green dial: The = sign appears on all sides The blue dial: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 The purple dial: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Playing around with this toy, I came up with three puzzles. (Let me know if someone else has published these before!) Randomly (and independently) spin each of the six dials of the toy. Look at the mathematical statement that appears on the top of the toy. What is the probability that the mathematical statement is correct? Spin the dials so that ...

 Hi friends! Let's take a look at Jeopardy! First Edition Game #9. As before, my goal is to share what I've learned about the clues in this game. Notes are in the order they appear in the original video, which you can find  here . Wikipedia is my primary source for much of this material (so take that with a grain of salt). Jeopardy! Round Categories: Around the World, Zoology, Midnight Madness, John Wayne, H2O, Choose Your Weapon H2O ($300):  The full names in the clue: James W. McCord, Jr., E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy, Bernard Barker, Eugenio Martinez, Frank Sturgis, and Virgilio Gonzalez. Barker, Gonzalez, Martinez, McCord, and Sturgis were the burglars. Hunt and Liddy were part of the Nixon White House staff. Choose Weapon ($200):  Well, a magnum is not that big of a bottle of champagne. It's 1.5 liters--still a lot--but not as big as a Melchizedek or Midas, which is 40 liters. Choose Weapon ($500):  The Bowie knife is named after Jim Bowie. Midnight Madn...

In one of my recent Super Mario Advance 4 videos, I talked about why we play (or watch) video games. As part of that discussion, I mentioned a great answer from the first issue of Games  magazine. Allen D. Bragdon, the magazine's first editor-in-chief, had this to say in his Editor's Message about the role of the new magazine: We think most people get a big kick out of coming up with the solution to a problem--whatever their age, education, income, or fighting weight. It's a satisfying feeling to put one's own resources to work on an honest challenge and master it. Yet so often it seems that trying to play the kind of games we must get into as part of practical, day-to-day living isn't as satisfying as it should be; often the subjects are dull, or the stakes too high, or the rules unclear; sometimes too many pieces are missing, or there is no clear winning answer. A world this complex just doesn't seem to allow people many chances to work things out all by them...

Hi friends! Let's take a look at Jeopardy! First Edition Game #8. As before, my goal is to share what I've learned about the clues in this game. Notes are in the order they appear in the original video, which you can find  here . Wikipedia is my primary source for much of this material (so take that with a grain of salt). Jeopardy! Round Categories: Psychiatry, Science Fiction, Thick & Thin, Asia, Walt Disney, "Jack"s of All Trades Psychiatry ($100):  So...one thing I learned after the episode is that a lot of the psychiatry clues from 1987 are kind of controversial today. And lobotomies are no exception. Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1949 for his work on lobotomies, but even in the 1950s, they were considered cruel. The Soviet Union banned them in the 1950s. Among the more famous people to have received a lobotomy were John F. Kennedy's sister, Rosemary, Tennessee Williams's sister, Rose, and allegedly, Eva ...

Hello friend-- It's a new series for the Scotty Euclid channel; I'm playing the 1989 MS-DOS version of Scrabble, which goes by the wordy title "The Computer Edition of Scrabble Brand Crossword Game". Produced by Leisure Genius, I believe it is the first computerized version of Scrabble for MS-DOS sold in the United States. After completing my first game ( part 1 and part 2 ), I decided to review how I did via the Quackle tool. This free software was produced by some major players in the Scrabble community and is used by the experts to review their games. I'm not an expert, but I thought it might be fun to look for some plays that I might have missed. Was there a bingo that I could have played in this game against Wordy? Well, yes, but it wasn't an obvious play. Let's take a look at the game. By the way, I used Quackle's Generate Choices command, but I didn't do any in-depth simulations or analysis. It's just a casual game against a 30+ year ol...

 Hi friends! Let's take a look at Jeopardy! First Edition Game #7. As before, my goal is to share what I've learned about the clues in this game. Notes are in the order they appear in the original video, which you can find  here . Wikipedia is my primary source for much of this material (so take that with a grain of salt). Jeopardy! Round Categories: Asia, Five Senses, Presidents, Heroes, Hollywood Romance, X's and O'x Presidents ($300):  Lyndon B. Johnson was married to Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson. Their two daughters: Lynda Bird Johnson and Luci Baines Johnson. LBJ was born, raised, and died at LBJ Ranch, now Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park. I can't find a reliable reference to his dog having the initials LBJ (Can you? Let me know in the comments.) Apparently, he had two beagles named Him and Her and another dog named Edgar. X's and O's ($100): The film, listed as "Oh, God!", was released in 1977. Heroes ($300): I had no...