Puzzles compiled by Ross Hunter
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Bridging Time
Summer is the time for strolling along the embankment or taking a cruise on the river. In the centre, there are four pedestrian only bridges over the Moscow river, two over the Vodaotvodny Canal and one over the Yauza River. Six of them are pictured below. Can you match them to their names, and the biggest attractions or eye catching buildings next to them?
The bridge names and nearby landmarks are in order, going downstream. The photos are shuffled.
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| Bogdana Khmel Nitskogo, near Kievskaya Station |
Frunzenskaya Nab., near Gorky Park |
Prechistenskaya Nab., near Christ the Saviour Cathedral |
Bolotnaya Nab, near the New Tretyakov |
Luzhkov Br, near Bolotnaya gardens & Repin’s statue |
Tessinsky Br, near British Council & BBC |
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Timeless Bridge Puzzles
Leonid Euler invented the mathematical discipline of topology in 1735, while strolling over the seven bridges of Konigsberg (currently Kaliningrad), by proving that you could not cross all 7 bridges only once on a walk. Can you work out why? Moscow’s 7 foot bridges are similarly impossible! Removing one bridge or adding one, in the right places, would both make it possible. Can you tell where? (Hint: look for odd and even numbers of connections).
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Prime Time
Like Miss Jean Brodie, I am in my Prime. But I had a birthday recently. Two prime number puzzles:
1 My irreverent IGCSE maths students asked me my age. Easy! This year I am a cube number times a prime number; last year my age was the product of two primes. Even my students can spot that I am over 21 and under 100. This only gives three possible ages. How old could I be?
2 They are <21, and realised that these rules fit those of one possible age. How old are they?
Two hints and clues:
a. curiously, ‘1’ is not prime (it is a square and a cube number. Cubes: 1, 8, 27, 64 & 125);
b. prime numbers up to 100: 2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37 41 43 47 53 59 61 67 71 73 79 83 89 97
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Mini Sudoku – July
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June solutions
Mini Sudoku: see www.englishedmoscow.com
Bird puzzles: Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Blue Tit, Tree Creeper, Great Tit.
Magic squares: two more examples amongst many possible, a ‘15’ & a ‘12’
In June, the story title A Quartet of Creative Cubs lost its last sentence. Sorry about that! Did you manage to guess it? If not, the story should have finished: Lisa asked the cubs what they thought of their busy summer. The twins said they had learned from their mistakes, which prompted Sasha and Boris to declare: ”If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing badly!”
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