353-Lateral Thinking Puzzles

Futility Closet

Greg Ross

History

4.8 • 748 Ratings

🗓️ 9 August 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Here are six new lateral thinking puzzles -- play along with us as we try to untangle some perplexing situations using yes-or-no questions.

Intro:

Lili McGrath's 1915 "floor polisher" is a pair of slippers connected by a cord.

Eighteenth-century English landowners commissioned custom ruins.

The sources for this week's puzzles are below. In some cases we've included links to further information -- these contain spoilers, so don't click until you've listened to the episode:

Puzzle #1 is from listener Moxie LaBouche.

Puzzle #2 is from listener Cheryl Jensen, who sent this link.

Puzzle #3 is from listener Theodore Warner. Here's a link.

Puzzle #4 is from listener David Morgan.

Puzzle #5 is from listener Bryan Ford, who sent these links.

Puzzle #6 is from listener John Rusk, who sent this link.

You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on Google Podcasts, on Apple Podcasts, or via the RSS feed at https://futilitycloset.libsyn.com/rss.

Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- you can choose the amount you want to pledge, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation on the Support Us page of the Futility Closet website.

Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode.

If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Futility Closet Podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history.
0:15.0	Visit us online to sample more than 11,000 quirky curiosities from a polishing dance to a sham ruin. This is episode 353. I'm Greg Ross.
0:25.0	And I'm Sharon Ross. This is another special episode of lateral thinking puzzles, where one of us
0:31.0	will describe a strange sounding situation and the other has to try to work out what's going on
0:36.2	by asking yes or no questions. Thanks very much to everyone who's been sending in puzzles for us to try to work out what's going on by asking yes or no questions.
0:38.0	Thanks very much to everyone who's been sending in puzzles for us to try.
0:41.1	We can always use more, so please keep sending them to podcast at futilitycloset.com.
0:46.4	And we'll be back next week with another dose of quirky history and another lateral thinking puzzle.
1:04.5	This is from the euphoniously named Maxi LaBusch of the Your Brain on Facts podcast.
1:06.7	A couple is hiking in the mountains.
1:11.2	They're not super outdoorsy and they become lost, unable to tell which way is which.
1:12.4	They don't have a compass.
1:16.2	The sky is solidly overcast, so they can't see the sun.
1:19.4	There is no obvious moss on the north side of the trees.
1:21.5	They spot a cabin across the valley.
1:28.0	The man looks at the cabin through his binoculars, then confidently declares that he knows which way to go, and he's right.
1:29.0	How did he know?
1:30.7	Hmm.
1:35.2	Does this have something to do with snow?
1:35.9	No.
1:44.4	I was thinking like the snow might be melted in one part of the roof or on one part of the cabin, so that meant the sun had been hitting it, whatever.
1:45.3	Okay.
	...

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