All posts tagged: Softy

Monday Micro Softy 90: Mow Power to You

Monday Micro Softy 90: Mow Power to You

Published by Jenni Sidey

When solving problems, engineers and computer programmers must sometimes think outside the box This week’s Micro Softy examines such a case. In the following problem, someone without any technical background was able to figure out why a lawnmower’s mows-per-gallon rate had decreased. Charlie Glispastavich lives in the city of Jupiter, Florida.   Most of the houses there are small, with relatively small yards. Charlie takes pride in maintaining his yard, including mowing, trimming, watering, and fertilizing. He mows his lawn once a week on Saturday. He also takes pride maintaining his gardening tools. His lawnmower is taken yearly to the local shop, where it is cleaned, tuned, and otherwise renewed. Charlie bought his house in 2000. He kept a log of his gardening expenses and it showed that in 2000 he was able to mow his lawn six times before refilling the mower with gasoline. In 2026, he was able to mow his lawn only five times before he needed to refill it. Charlie was concerned. He took the mower to the shop, and the mechanic …

Monday Micro Softy 89: Double Negatives are a No-No

Monday Micro Softy 89: Double Negatives are a No-No

Published by Jenni Sidey

22 million views/accompanied by lyrics In logic, cascading two NOT gates gives you the same answer as the input. Cascading three NOT gates produces the same result as a single NOT gate. With this in mind, how’s your vocabulary? Ask somebody for a big word, and they might quote Mary Poppins’ nonsense word: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious The word has no meaning in itself; it expresses surprise and pleasure. But it does have an interesting (and contentious) history. A word that is long that does means something is antidisestablishmentarianism A lot of us have heard this word because it is often cited as an example of a very long word. but few know what it means. I didn’t until I looked it up. Historically, it meant the view that the British government should continue to support the established church, the Church of England. To understand the word, you have to work through two “no’s” (two negatives).   The first is “dis-“ and the second is “anti-“. A vivisection of the word is given at the end of this article. …

Monday Micro Softy 88: Flipping Gold Coins

Monday Micro Softy 88: Flipping Gold Coins

Published by Jenni Sidey

Here’s this week’s problem: A number of gold coins are spread out on a table while you are in another room. The exact number is irrelevant. Some are heads-up and some are tails-up. You are told exactly how many coins are showing heads. A sheet is placed over the coins and you enter the room. Image generated with ChatGPTCoins awaiting a flip/ChatGPT Without revealing any coins, you place your hands under the sheet. You cannot distinguish heads from tails by touch or by any other method. With your hands under the sheet, your task is to separate the coins into two groups so that each group contains exactly the same number of heads. For any coin, you may either leave it as it is or flip it over. You separate the coins into two groups while your hands remain covered. When you are finished, you remove your hands from the table and the sheet is lifted. What remains are two groups of coins, each of which shows the exact same number of heads. How can …

Monday Micro Softy: Dr. Marks’s Incredible Ice Diet

Monday Micro Softy: Dr. Marks’s Incredible Ice Diet

Published by Jenni Sidey

I’m pausing the weekly Micro Softy column to make a breakthrough announcement that will be a blessing to all the people in the world like me who struggle with weight control. I’m proposing a landmark diet that is simple to understand and to live with. It’s genius! I call it Dr. Marks’ Incredible Ice Diet. (My doctorate isn’t in medicine, nutrition, or any health-related field — but never mind. I am confident.)  I’m happy to disclose my new diet here because I’m planning to submit a provisional patent on the idea, which was filed prior to the publication of this column. The idea uses easy-to-understand basic physics. Many diets are based on counting calories. The calorie is defined as the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1 cubic centimeter of water by 1 degree Centigrade (Celsius) at a pressure of 1 atmosphere. So consider an ice cube measuring three centimeters on each side. (Three centimeters is a little over an inch.)  The volume of the ice cube is approximately 27 cubic centimeters. …

Monday Micro Softy 85: Are You Up To Caliber?

Monday Micro Softy 85: Are You Up To Caliber?

Published by Jenni Sidey

Credited to London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company; photographer unknown. published in 1897 in The Strand Magazine (see File:Zazel The Strand 1897.jpg)., Public Domain.14-year-old acrobat, Rosa Maria Richter, billed as ‘Zazel’, the world’sfirst female human cannonball at thestart of her act at the Royal Aquarium, London/Public Domain. A human cannonball’s son wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps — but he just couldn’t. He wasn’t up to caliber 😊. Are you up to caliber?   Clever nerds must be able to think strategically. With this in mind, consider the following: During World War II, American infantry rifles used .30-caliber (7.62 mm) ammunition. When Japan entered the war, they began producing rifles that used .31-caliber (7.7 mm) bullets instead. Here’s this week’s Micro Softy.   Now the question is, why would the Japanese design their rifles to use a slightly larger .31-caliber bullet if they already had smaller-caliber weapons available? Solution to Micro Softy 85: The Followers Last week, we considered a swarm called The Followers. The rules couldn’t be simpler. Each bug in the swarm randomly selects …

Monday Micro Softy 84: Meet the Followers

Monday Micro Softy 84: Meet the Followers

Published by Jenni Sidey

Over the past two weeks, we’ve tested our puzzlers’ ability to think deeply outside the box. We explored how swarms of dumb bugs can follow very simple rules yet produce surprising, emergent behaviors. This week continues our Micro Softy series on swarm intelligence, (that’s the technical term). Our new swarm is called The Followers. This time, the rules they follow are even simpler. Each bug in the swarm randomly picks another bug and begins to move toward it. What happens in the long run? For this week’s Micro Softy challenge, your task is to describe the emergent behaviors that result from this kind of swarm. Hint: At least two distinct emergent behaviors can occur. One emerges when a bug happens to choose itself to follow. Since it can’t get any closer to itself, it remains still.  The other emerges when a group of bugs contains no bug that has chosen itself. Figure 1: The green coward tries to placeitself between the blue protector and thered bully. Each bug in the swarm is trying todo the …

Monday Micro Softy 83: A Swarm of Cowards?

Monday Micro Softy 83: A Swarm of Cowards?

Published by Jenni Sidey

Figure 1: In this swarm of Cowards,each bug moves to position itselfin this way. What happens if every bug in the swarm randomly choosestwo other bugs and does this? Last week’s Micro Softy challenged our puzzlers ability to think abstractly. We explored how simple rules can lead to complex behavior when the rules are followed by unintelligent agents — in that case it was dumb bugs. We continue that theme this week but instead of looking at “Peacemaker” bugs, we’re going to focus on the “Cowards.” We’ll return to the Peacemakers shortly when we reveal the answer to last week’s Micro Softy. But first, the Cowards. Imagine a swarm of bugs again. Each one randomly chooses two others from the group. One of them —shown in red in the figure — is an aggressive bully that wants to attack the green bug. The other —shown in blue — is a protector. The timid green bug moves so that the blue protector stands between itself and the red bully. Now imagine that every bug in the …

Monday Micro Softy 82: When Bugs Break Up Fights…

Monday Micro Softy 82: When Bugs Break Up Fights…

Published by Jenni Sidey

Figure 1: In the Peacemaker Swarm, a peacemaker, shown in green, pickstwo warring bugs shown in red andmoves to place itself between them. A fascinating branch of computational intelligence is swarm intelligence — inspired by how simple creatures in nature achieve complex goals together. Individually, these “dumb bugs” perform only basic tasks. Yet collectively they create intricate structures like beehives, hornet nests, and termite mounds. Their coordinated activity gives rise to what’s known as emergent behavior — complex outcomes arising from simple individual actions. Last Monday’s Micro Softy was about termites. The solution is below. Today’s puzzle is about how bugs can break up fights. Picture a large swarm of crawling insects, represented by the dots in Figure 1. Each bug eyes two other bugs that he thinks are going to fight. As a peacemaker, he moves to place himself between these two.  Meanwhile, every bug in the swarm eyes two different bugs and does the same thing. Each bug is moving trying to place itself between two other bugs chosen at random. So the …

Monday Micro Softy 81: Termites Are Surprisingly Smart

Monday Micro Softy 81: Termites Are Surprisingly Smart

Published by Jenni Sidey

Artificial intelligence isn’t just large language models or image-generating transformers. Another rich vein of AI is swarm intelligence — lessons from nature on how dumb bugs do smart things collectively. Dumb bugs, each doing a simple task, work together to build bee hives, hornet nests and termite villages. Their collective effort is called the emergent behavior of simple actions. Ants, for example, use chemical communication to find the shortest path between food and their nest. When a scout ant discovers something desirable — say, a Snickers bar — it heads back home, all the while laying down a trail of pheromones, chemicals that trigger behavior in other ants. The other ants pick up this scent and follow it. They reinforce the trail with their own pheromones if they reach the food successfully. At first, ants may explore multiple routes, but shorter paths allow them to make more trips in less time, which means those trails receive pheromone reinforcement more frequently. Over time, the shorter route becomes much stronger in scent and more heavily trafficked, while …

Monday Micro Softy 80: The Digits of Least Significance

Monday Micro Softy 80: The Digits of Least Significance

Published by Jenni Sidey

Engineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists need to know some number theory, the branch of mathematics that studies the way numbers behave. Number theory is needed to understand modern data encryption, for example. This week’s Micro Softy is about number theory and least significant digits (the last digit of a large number is its least significant one). It builds on the solution of last week’s puzzle. So let’s reveal that solution first. Solution to Micro Softy 80: The Last Digits in Fermat’s Last Theorem It’s a tough puzzle. My mathematics friend Professor Dave Johns texted me that he believed Wiles’ celebrated proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem was incorrect. Here’s the math behind the theorem again: Remember, one counter example is all that is needed to disprove Fermat’s theorem. Johns said he had found a counter example. He provided three numbers. (All math variables should be in italics) x = 321,232,430,786,123,860 y = 487,367,975,876,123,125 z = 4,534,432,154,871,543,981 But poor Professor Jones lost his memory before he announced the value of n in the equation above, where n>2 …