Little Johnny Liddle loved to fish for largemouth bass in the lakes and ponds around Memphis. After saving enough money to buy a fishing rod, he took the bus to the Bass Pro Shop pyramid and chose one.  But when he went to the bus to go home, he was stopped by the driver.

“How long is that fishing pole?” the driver asked.

Johnny said he didn’t know. The bus driver took out a tape measure.

“A little under 5 feet” he said to himself. He turned to Johnny. “I’m sorry son, but there’s a rule about bringing anything on the bus that measures over four linear feet.”

Little Johnny Liddle pleaded with the driver. His parents were at work and he had no other way to get home.

“I’m sorry kid. I don’t make the rules and I’ll be fired if I don’t enforce them.”

Although sympathetic, the bus driver didn’t let Johnny ride.

Johnny returned to the Pro Bass Shop with his fishing pole. He emerged with the fishing rod in  a package and returned to the bus stop. As luck would have it, the bus that pulled up was driven by  the same bus driver. The bus driver   looked at Johnny and then the package. He smiled and waved Johnny onto the bus.

What happened? Johnny was still carrying the same fishing rod. It was one solid piece and could not be separated into two or more pieces. Nor was it bent. So how did the Pro Bass Shop help Little Johnny Liddle get his 5 foot fishing rod on the bus without getting the bus driver fired?

We’ll give the answer next Monday right here at Mind Matters News.

Solution to  Micro Softy 24: 3D Tic Tac Toe Last week’s Micro Softy described 3D Tic Tac Toe and asked whether there could ever be a tie. A tie game is shown in Figure 2, so the answer is yes:

For extra credit, we asked if a 4D game of Tic Tac Toe could be played on a sheet of paper. As seen in Figure 3 the answer is yes. The playing field is a 5×5 array of 5×5 matrices. As shown, each column, row and diagonal of matrices corresponds to a 5×5×5 3D cube. A few winning combinations of 5 squares in a row are shown:

The game is 4D because it takes four numbers to specify a square. Two numbers are needed to choose the matrix — the count to the right and then the count up. Once a matrix is specified, two more coordinates are needed to specify a square within the matrix. Thus, four numbers are needed to specify a square.

I have only played 4D Tic Tac Toe once. There are 625 squares, so it took a long time and a lot of thinking.

What about 5D Tic Tac Toe? It requires a 6×6 matrix of 6×6 matrices of 6×6 matrices.

This is too much to think about.

Links to all the Monday Micro Softies

Monday Micro Softy 24: Have you ever tried 3D Tic Tac Toe? To liven up a predictable game, try doing it in three — or even four — dimensions! You won’t be bored. To solve the Barnum’s Circus ticket receipts puzzle, recall that X, Y and Z must all be whole numbers. Algebra then enables us to work out the solution.

Monday Micro Softy 23: Barnum’s Circus Receipts. Circus master Barnum’s ticket seller had not kept proper track of the tickets sold. Can the limited information — and some algebra — help Barnum figure it out? The solution to Micro Softy 22, given here, depends on the assumptions we make about Timmy’s surgeon.

Monday Micro Softy 22: Can there be two daddies? This week’s puzzler asks: Can a child’s father be dead and alive at the same time? Or is there another solution? The solution to last week’s puzzler lies in things we can do with binary numbers.

Monday Micro Softy 21 and previous links: Finding More of the Deadly Fentanyl Pills. There, you will also find links to Microsofties 11 through 20 as well.

and

At Monday Micro Softy 11: What Happened to That Other Dollar?, you will find links to the first ten Micro Softies. Have fun!