Mind Matters News is pleased to offer this new series, “Monday Micro Softies,” from our director, Robert J. Marks, on computers, computing, and the computer industry. – Eds.

Before we get to today’s Micro Softy question, here’s the answer to last Monday’s.

Solution to Micro Softy 1: The Round Trip

The Micro Softy from the last time was this: “You go 5 miles south, 10 miles east and 5 miles north and arrive where you started from. Where are you if you are not at the North Pole?”

As illustrated in the first figure below, the obvious answer is the North Pole. Go south 5 miles. No matter how much east you go, 10 miles or otherwise, going 5 miles north will bring you back to the North Pole where you started.

But the problem states explicitly that you are not at the North Pole. So this can’t be the answer.

A less obvious answer is near the South Pole. As illustrated in the figure below, there is a circle parallel to the equator a bit north of the South Pole whose circumference is exactly 10 miles. Start at any point five miles north of the circle. Go five miles south, go east 10 miles around the circle, go north 5 miles and you end up were you started. So this is the answer.

Now here’s today’s brain teaser, Micro Softy 2.

Ola was a grade school student in St. Petersburg, Russia. She knew nothing about American history. As her mother was driving her to school each day, they listened to the radio station Vesti FM (89.3 FM). Vesti offered a daily feature called American Trivia. Here’s a translation of what Ola and her mother heard.

Here is an incredible fact about America’s founding fathers. Americans celebrate July 4^th every year as Independence Day. It was that day in 1776 where the United States declared their independence from England. The names of the first five US Presidents, in order, were Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. Here is what is remarkable. Of the first five US Presidents, three of them died on July 4th!

Ola immediately knew with certainty, not with a probability of 3 out of 5, the name of one of the three US Presidents who died on July 4^th. She received no help from her mother or anyone else.

Who was that President and how did Ola know this?

We’ll give the answer next Monday in Micro Softy 3.

Here’s Monday Micro Softy 1: Microsoft: What did you need to work there in the early days? They asked questions that were not about the details of computer technology. The questions made you think. Hard. For example, they would ask questions like, why are manhole covers round?