Polar bear puzzle 4

[GwydionM]

A man walks one mile north, one mile east and one mile south, returning to the spot he started from. There he is eaten by a polar bear. Was he wearing clean underwear?

This is a variant on a very old riddle, and might seem unanswerable. Is it?

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A view from the UK

 

[SkipVought]

I heard this told a different way.

A hunter walks from camp, one mile EAST and then one mile NORTH, shoots a bear and drags it one mile SOUTH back to camp.

[red]What color was the bear?[/red]

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[SkipVought]

'nuther bear puzzel:

Two hunters, one from the Czech Republic and the other from Romania, happen upon a pair of mating bears. Startled by the intrusion, both bears assume an ominously aggressive posture.

Bead of sweat erupted from the hunters’ faces. As the perspiration flowed down their faces, the bitter cold froze the sweat into pellet-sized balls. The hunters, realizing both their predicament and good fortune, plucked the frozen beads of sweat from their faces, rammed the potential projectiles into the muzzles of their firearms, cocked their muskets and fired in unison. The blast of gunpowder immediately melted the ice balls, launching a hot stream of water, which immediately formed a frozen lance in the cold Balkan winter air, each dart, heading for its bruin victim.

Oops! Wrong joke!

The two bears charged, each one COMPLETELY focused on one hunter, each quickly overcame their prey and devoured him entirely!

Which bear ate which hunter?

[white]The Czech’s in the male![/white]

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[strongm]

<groan>

 

[SkipVought]

I just LOVE to hear them there <groans>!!!!

"[sub]\Thankyouverymuch![/sub]"

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[ChrisHunt]

A man walks one mile north, one mile east and one mile south, returning to the spot he started from. There he is eaten by a polar bear. Was he wearing clean underwear?

Guess it depends on whether he saw the bear coming...

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[SkipVought]

The originally stated puzzle did not make any sense to me.

Actually, the puzzle has a contradiction. The statement, “A man walks one mile north, one mile east and one mile south, returning to the spot he started from,” implies that he is at the South Pole. Furthermore, it states, “There he is eaten by a polar bear.” No land-based vertebrate animals inhabit Antarctica.

This is why I restated the puzzle. Sorry to rain on your parade.


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[GwydionM]

SkipVought, that is one of two possible answers that I was looking for. You noticed that the man was at the wrong pole, which is the sort of thing programmers should be watching for.

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A view from the UK

 

[strongm]

I think it was the underwear-wearing bear that was at the wrong pole...

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

Surely if someone starts at point X, walks one mile North, one mile East, and one mile South, they will end up one mile East of starting point X, not back at point X as the riddle implies?

Dan

 

[SkipVought]

Dan,

... except if they begin at the South Pole.

THEN, the riddle works, but for the polar bear.

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[SkipVought]

The whole point of this riddle is that, under nearly all circumstances, the geometry does not make sense.

When the person starts at Point A, proceeds either East or West ANY distance to Point B, turns North and proceeds X units to point C, and finally returns to point A by proceeding South, X units, there can be ONLY one conclusion. He/She began X units SOUTH of the North Pole. So this logic establishes the LOCATION.

The second part of the puzzle can only then be, What color is the bear? If you figure out the former, then the answer to the latter is but a short "leap."

I have no idea what underwear has to do with anything in this puzzle.

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[strongm]

There is actually a (limited) North Pole solution where walking 1 mile north, then 1 mile east (or west) then 1 mile south returns you to your starting point

 

[SkipVought]

strongm,

True. I missed that possibility, didn't I?

But ultimately, in any case, the question is, "What color is the bear?" because it's all related to the geometry.

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[ChrisHunt]

“A man walks one mile north, one mile east and one mile south, returning to the spot he started from,” implies that he is at the South Pole

Not necessarily. If he starts from any point approximately 1.1592 miles south of the North Pole, he'd walk a mile north, walk all the way around the world with that mile east, and return to his starting point with the mile south. There are an infinite number of other north pole solutions where the mile east results in double, triple, etc. circumnavigations. There's only one south pole solution (albeit the most obvious one), so he's more likely to be at the North Pole than the south.

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[snuv]

Technically the bear could be any colour.

There is nothing in the riddle that specifies that the bear is a native to the area.

After all, humans have to make a special trip to be eaten, why not the bear to do the eating?

Secondly the puzzle doesn't state that it is this planet.
Bears on some other planet might be purple, or any other colour, at (or near) the south or north pole




Go not to cats for advice for they will just walk over the keyboard

 

[strongm]

>Not necessarily

I think SkipVought and I had already alluded to this

 

[SkipVought]

sunv,

What kind of joke would it be, if you had to explain to the unwashed masses (the average Joe or Joanne)...

...technically, the road could be anything including a stairway, a river, a rail, a conveyor belt etc. and

and the chicken, well it could have been an EGG rolling across the above explained road, which in another galaxcy at another time could have been squareish instead of ovalish, and...

......

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[ESquared]

The bear was not wearing any underwear at all, so the question "was he wearing clean underwear" can accurately be answered "no."

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There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who know binary, and those who don't.

 

[Thadeus]

Thank you ESquared... I was reading down the thread wondering that no one had addressed this issue yet.

~Thadeus