CLASSICAL GAS --
SOLUTION TO LAST ISSUE'S PUZZLER

"yes and then he asked me would I say yes to say yes yes"

Here is the explanation for those to whom it is not already obvious:
If Chester begins by saying "no" then he is insane. If he begins by saying "YES" he is sane. The politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant each contribute opinions which are unambiguous ("AND THEN HE ASKED ME," "WOULD I SAY YES," and "TOO," respectively). The third baseman on the baseball team was Ron CEY. The solution for the final portion is slightly more involved. The cosine value is plainly wrong, so the equation quickly boils down to Y = (4 x 21), which is clearly irrelevant. Because of that, the net value displayed on the thermometer, when all three sheep have been ferried across the river, is 64. This is a power of two, which means that the cosmological constant must be zero (alert puzzler solvers will have realized this much earlier: it was clear from what Professor Pangloss explained to Professor Hoyle at the very beginning). And so the ultimate answer to Polly's naive double question (and the final words in the solution) is (and are) "YES, YES.

© Copyright 2002 Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)

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