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Cube
Posted: October 20th, 2018, 1:02 pm
by cinelli
How can you make a cube with five paper matches? No bending or splitting of matches is allowed.
Cinelli
Re: Cube
Posted: October 20th, 2018, 2:51 pm
by Gengulphus
cinelli wrote:How can you make a cube with five paper matches? No bending or splitting of matches is allowed.
Spoiler...
Place them as follows on a flat surface (though without the small gaps):
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The cube is 1^3 = 1. ;-)
Gengulphus
Re: Cube
Posted: October 21st, 2018, 11:23 am
by GoSeigen
cinelli wrote:How can you make a cube with five paper matches? No bending or splitting of matches is allowed.
Cinelli
Would I be right in guessing this is more a riddle than a puzzle and that the cube is 8?
GS
Re: Cube
Posted: October 21st, 2018, 11:49 am
by UncleEbenezer
GoSeigen wrote:cinelli wrote:How can you make a cube with five paper matches? No bending or splitting of matches is allowed.
Cinelli
Would I be right in guessing this is more a riddle than a puzzle and that the cube is 8?
GS
Would that be akin to making a square from three such matchsticks? Note that you could extend your solution to make other cubes including 125, 1000, or 125000.
Otherwise 27 would work much the same way. Or indeed 1, +1, or -1, according to height.
But all of these solutions use matchsticks, whereas the question asks about "paper matches" - whatever they might be. I think we need to figure out what that actually refers to. "Bending or splitting" may be a complete red herring.
Re: Cube
Posted: October 21st, 2018, 3:39 pm
by malkymoo
GoSeigen wrote:
Would I be right in guessing this is more a riddle than a puzzle and that the cube is 8?
GS
or 27?
Not sure why the matches need to be paper though.
Re: Cube
Posted: October 21st, 2018, 3:49 pm
by SteelCamel
OK, this is probably too obvious.... Get another seven of them? You can then quite easily arrange them as the 12 edges of a cube. You never said "using only five paper matches"...
Or if we are looking for a cube number, how about "X - II" which is 10 - 2 = 8? You can make the X with two crossed matches, and the rest are singles, totalling five. They need to be paper matches as it makes it easier to cross them - a matchstick might fall off.
Re: Cube
Posted: October 22nd, 2018, 11:59 am
by cinelli
Gengulphus was very quick off the mark with an acceptable answer. So is this:
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(27). You would do well to make 8 from five matches.
Cinelli
Re: Cube
Posted: October 22nd, 2018, 12:04 pm
by UncleEbenezer
cinelli wrote:Gengulphus was very quick off the mark with an acceptable answer. So is this:
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(27). You would do well to make 8 from five matches.
Cinelli
I'm disappointed. I imagined the answer would've been GoSeigen's implied VIII . Which of course leads to my other suggestions: a three-match square being IV, IX, or IL, and an extension being the observation that any number (e.g. V, X or L) raised to the power of III is a cube.
Re: Cube
Posted: October 22nd, 2018, 12:47 pm
by kiloran
cinelli wrote: You would do well to make 8 from five matches.
Cinelli
What's the problem? Make a square with 4 of the matches, then add the fifth across the middle. OK, it's a bit squashed, but it's still an 8
--kiloran
Re: Cube
Posted: October 22nd, 2018, 2:24 pm
by UncleEbenezer
kiloran wrote:cinelli wrote: You would do well to make 8 from five matches.
Cinelli
What's the problem? Make a square with 4 of the matches, then add the fifth across the middle. OK, it's a bit squashed, but it's still an 8
--kiloran
... which those of us of a certain age will remember from our pocket calculators and computers up to about 30 years ago.
Re: Cube
Posted: October 22nd, 2018, 7:08 pm
by GoSeigen
cinelli wrote:Gengulphus was very quick off the mark with an acceptable answer. So is this:
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/ /
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(27). You would do well to make 8 from five matches.
Cinelli
.===1===
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2===3===4
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===5===
GS
Re: Cube
Posted: October 23rd, 2018, 8:01 am
by BobbyD
GoSeigen wrote:cinelli wrote:Gengulphus was very quick off the mark with an acceptable answer. So is this:
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/ /
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(27). You would do well to make 8 from five matches.
Cinelli
.===1===
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2===3===4
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===5===
GS
Make an 'X' with the first two matches, place the third match between the two ends at the bootom of the X, and the fourth match between the two ends at the top. Strike the fifth match and burn to the end.
Re: Cube
Posted: October 23rd, 2018, 4:34 pm
by malkymoo
I have thought of a way to make a cube out of four matches (all of them), can be wood ones if you like! Only slightly more tricksy than the original question.
Any advance on four?
Re: Cube
Posted: October 24th, 2018, 7:39 pm
by Gengulphus
malkymoo wrote:I have thought of a way to make a cube out of four matches (all of them), can be wood ones if you like! Only slightly more tricksy than the original question.
Any advance on four?
Well, there's a way to make a cube from just one match (all of it), and it too can be a wood one if you like. It's closely related to my solution with five matches earlier in the thread...
Any advance on one? ;
-)
Gengulphus