#128 Tournament headache
Four hungover footballing mathematicians groaned in unison. “Anyone remember who won yesterday’s tournament between our four teams?” asked Ranko, the Red Star Belgradient goalkeeper. Ignacio, the Integer Milan striker, raised his hand feebly. “I remember that we each played each other once. Three points for a win. One for a draw. And all of the scorelines were different.”
Tom, the Tottingup Hotspur defender, opened one eye. “Are 1-0 and 0-1 different or the same?” “They’re the same, obviously!” said Patrick, of PSV Eigenvector, adding: “I remember that every team scored a different number of goals in each of their games.”
“But never more than two!” said Ranko. “And I know my team didn’t concede a goal.” Patrick pulled a silver medal out of his pocket. “And we must have finished second,” he deduced.
“I know which game ended 2-2!” said all four at once.
Which was it?
#127 Brahms and Liszt
Solution
It is possible to construct jigsaw-like pieces for the conditions and then see the possible ways they can fit together. The notion that only one item is correctly positioned gives the following unique solution:
First name Surname Composer
1 Claudio Grump Liszt
2 Agnes Iddyhat Khachaturian
3 Edgar Hobble Mozart
4 Dolores Jabber Schubert
5 Bjorn Flop Prokofiev
Quick quiz #116
1 How many baobab species are found in the Adansonia genus?
2 Who first described the behaviour of chromosomes in the cell nucleus during mitosis?
3 In what year was the electric chair first used to execute someone?
4 What name is given to the central shaft of a bird’s feather?
5 Quasars and Seyfert galaxies are part of what class of astronomical objects?
Answers
1 Eight
2 Walther Flemming
3 1890
4 The rachis
5 Active galactic nuclei
- Solution next week