Peder
Well-Known Member
The Christmas Puzzle
Suppose for the moment you received a gift for Christmas that was contained in a gray unmarked box and, when you opened the box, the contents appeared to be jig-saw puzzle pieces for a rather large puzzle – about a thousand pieces more or less. Each seemed to have the customary small fragment of some colorful picture and the usual wavy edges for interlocking with other pieces.
Eager to start, you headed for the dining room table to spread out the pieces and get going but found that it was already being set for the customary family feast later in the day. So you settled on the couch, after moving the cat aside, and started to finger the pieces and look at them individually. You quickly double-checked the box cover for a picture but, no, there was none. Hm, no hints, eh? Rather quickly you noticed that each piece had a picture on each side. Ho-ho! A tough one, eh? And finally, rummaging through the jumbled pile of pieces for the usual shapes, you slowly surmised that there seemed to be no edge pieces or corner pieces either.
So, after a second look, to check if there really was no picture on the cover, you finally decided to look at pieces at random and, after examining each piece, toss it back randomly into the box after scrutinizing it as closely and as long as you wished.
After a while your clever 10-year old daughter wandered by and asked, “Dad? Do you really think you are going to figure out what the picture is without assembling the puzzle?”
Grim silence from you as you continued picking up and flipping pieces back into the box.
After a while, from the same curious daughter, “What makes you think they will even make a picture?”
Grimmer silence from you now, as you hoped she'd take the hint and blast off.
Then, “Maybe there are two pictures in that pile, depending how you put the pieces together? Or more?
At which point you said “Go 'way, I'm busy.” Or perhaps you had answers to her questions. Hm?
Suppose for the moment you received a gift for Christmas that was contained in a gray unmarked box and, when you opened the box, the contents appeared to be jig-saw puzzle pieces for a rather large puzzle – about a thousand pieces more or less. Each seemed to have the customary small fragment of some colorful picture and the usual wavy edges for interlocking with other pieces.
Eager to start, you headed for the dining room table to spread out the pieces and get going but found that it was already being set for the customary family feast later in the day. So you settled on the couch, after moving the cat aside, and started to finger the pieces and look at them individually. You quickly double-checked the box cover for a picture but, no, there was none. Hm, no hints, eh? Rather quickly you noticed that each piece had a picture on each side. Ho-ho! A tough one, eh? And finally, rummaging through the jumbled pile of pieces for the usual shapes, you slowly surmised that there seemed to be no edge pieces or corner pieces either.
So, after a second look, to check if there really was no picture on the cover, you finally decided to look at pieces at random and, after examining each piece, toss it back randomly into the box after scrutinizing it as closely and as long as you wished.
After a while your clever 10-year old daughter wandered by and asked, “Dad? Do you really think you are going to figure out what the picture is without assembling the puzzle?”
Grim silence from you as you continued picking up and flipping pieces back into the box.
After a while, from the same curious daughter, “What makes you think they will even make a picture?”
Grimmer silence from you now, as you hoped she'd take the hint and blast off.
Then, “Maybe there are two pictures in that pile, depending how you put the pieces together? Or more?
At which point you said “Go 'way, I'm busy.” Or perhaps you had answers to her questions. Hm?
