Be Creative
Logic puzzles require you to think. You will have to be logical in your reasoning.
Using one sheet of paper (8&1/2 by 11 inches), support a heavy hardcover book 1 inch above a tabletop. You may use this one sheet of paper, scissors, a pencil and tape only. Once you are done, only the paper may hold up the book.
HintI did not use a full sheet of paper. Try it first.
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Answer
Cut the paper into six strips, 1 inch wide by 11 inches long. Wind each strip around a pencil to make a tight cylinder. Slide the cylinder off the pencil and fasten with a small piece of tape. Finally, stand all 6 cylinders on their ends in a cross arrangement, with 4 at the corners of the intended book and two in the center of book, side by side, along the long axis of the book. Lay the book on its side on top of this arrangement. It will hold the book one inch off the tabletop.
(FYI, when I did this, it held 35 large books before the paper tubes collapsed.)
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Comments
willymapo   
Apr 28, 2004
| Great Teaser! Clever solution!  Don't know if it should come on logic though  (It seems more a Science one). I remember one project like this from the Engineering class "Buildings and Structures". |
fishmed  
Apr 28, 2004
| Thanks. I put it into logic only because I figured it would take logic to figure out the answer. Maybe science, but so far it passed the editors in logic. We'll see, who knows. Thanks again. Glad you liked it.  |
Palsha
May 01, 2004
| That was such an interesting teaser!!! I might try it sometime!  |
smithy
May 03, 2004
| Nice! Something to do in my spare time |
cmllanes
May 04, 2004
| This also works: fan-fold the paper 6 times the long way to create a 1.83 x 8.5 inch rectangle. Insert one end of the rectangle into the other (between any of the folds) to create an irregular oval strip -- no tape needed. Stand the strip on edge. I was able to set 1500-page hardcover book on this strip. |
(user deleted)
May 05, 2004
| Either way it works.  |
Palsha
May 05, 2004
| I still think the orignal answer would work best. |
fishmed
May 07, 2004
| I think that both ways would work, but the solution that I used allowed me to stack multiple books, I believe, because the weight was more evenly distributed that otherwise. |
gmredneck
May 20, 2004
| Good teaser... I came up w/ a similar answer but I suspect my book may not have been EXACTLY one inch off the table...
Who said you could use a pencil (or a ruler for that matter)? ;-}~ |
gmredneck
May 20, 2004
| Good teaser... I came up w/ a similar answer but I suspect my book may not have been EXACTLY one inch off the table...
Who said you could use a pencil (or a ruler for that matter)? ;-}~ |
ghostshadow
Jun 04, 2004
| It should say "using whatever the hell you want because I'm gonna in the solution.  |
tsimkin
Dec 21, 2004
| I prefer cmllanes's solution, because the other solution still has forces acting on the tape. The teaser says it has to be the paper (and only the paper) that ultimately supports the book. Interesting teaser, and good work, cmllanes. |
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