Thursday 22 July 2010

Gold or Cotton - Which is heavier ?



There are a set of puzzles called lateral thinking puzzles. While some of us find it rather annoying, a lot many of us find it challenging and interesting. What separates lateral puzzles from a normal puzzle is that lateral puzzles makes you think.

Naturally, answers to such puzzles can be either complicate or very naïve depending on the nature of the person who is trying to solve it.

Almost all lateral puzzles are mostly stories which are incomplete and needs the person to fill up the storyline with his or her imagination and creativity. At times, an out of box thinker will find it easier to solve these.

Which would you say is heavier, a pound of cotton or a pound of gold?

Technically, you would say that they should both weigh the same as a pound of cotton and a pound of gold are both one and the same, as a pound is an unit of weight. You might also argue that a pound of gold will drop faster than a pound of cotton in the atmosphere but will fall at the same speed if placed in vacuum.

The solution to the above puzzle is that a pound of cotton outweighs a pound of gold because there are two different types of “pounds” that are used for measuring the weight of cotton and gold. While cotton is weighed using the avoirdupois pound that consists of 16 ounces, gold is weighed using the troy pound. Troy pound is used for measuring precious metals and consists of only 12 ounces (373 gms)

Feel free to post those puzzles to which you are searching for a solution. Alternately, don’t hesitate to post puzzles, which you feel is a twister and want to puzzle-slug with others.

So long, and thanks for reading.

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