I recently visited Discount Tires to have my tires rotated. They do it for free.

Stepping into the garage, I noticed two mechanics looking under the hood of a Volkswagen. I recognized them from church, though their names escaped me.

The older mechanic was tall, with long, unkempt hair, while the younger one was built like a squat fire hydrant with short hair. He had no physical resemblance to the older one. Even so, the squat young mechanic is the biological son of the older mechanic. And yet the older mechanic is not his biological father.

Solution to Micro Softy 50: Cutting Through the Cornbread

Last Monday, old man Yuri was challenged to divide a rectangular slab of cornbread into eight equal pieces, using just three straight cuts. He succeeded. How did he manage to create eight identical portions with only three cuts?

First, the cornbread is a rectangular slab. As shown in Figure 1, any rectangular slab can be cut into eight pieces using three cuts. For the cornbread, the first cut is non-obvious. It horizontally separates the top and the bottom thereby making two thinner slabs.

See Figure 1 below right:

The Monday Micro Softy is a weekly feature of Mind Matters News. Here are the links to all the puzzles and answers to date:

Monday Micro Softy 50: Cutting through the cornbread. How did Yuri Senior cut the cornbread into eight identical portions using only three straight cuts? You can guess the answer to Microsofty 49 if you try the test question yourself at home, using a small mirror. Links to Microsofties 46 through 49 are here as well.

Monday Micro Softy 45: Can Tony beat the fast-food curfew? An early curfew on fast food service motivated a boy to exercise more vigorously. But how fast was he pedaling? To solve Micro Softy 44, recall that Tony doesn’t need to take the individual pills each day, only the prescribed amount of each. You will find links here to Micros Softies 41 through 44 as well.

Monday Micro Softy 40: The fate of a false prophet. He wasn’t actually fired for being a false prophet but for something that his prophecy unintentionally revealed. The solution to Micro Softy 39 lies in considering an alternative possible meaning of a word commonly used in sports. You will also find links to Micro Softies 30 through 39 and their answers here as well.

Monday Micro Softy 29: A funeral lament in four lines. The funeral director was puzzled by Dan’s description of his relationship to the deceased but there was no question that his grief was sincere Here, you will also find links to Microsofties 22 through 29.

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

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