******* The Car Talk Puzzler Psychic Friends Network******* >From The Desk Of
Maury Maille Puzzler Tower Car Talk Plaza Hahvahd Squayah Our Fair City This Week's Puzzler: Electrical Engineers Learn The Hard Way RAY: This puzzler is from Gary from Santa Clara, California. It's kind of an automotive puzzler. Gary writes: "As a shade tree mechanic, I've read many times that when removing a car's battery or doing electrical work, one is supposed to disconnect the negative terminal first, and only then, the positive terminal. Installation, as so many instructions say, is the reverse of that procedure. "Now, as an electrical engineer, I scoffed at these instructions, because I knew that opening a circuit at any point was equivalent to opening it anywhere else. I just disconnected whatever terminal was handy. One day, I was helping a friend change the battery in his garden tractor. He happened to be an electrician, and he knew as well as I did that it didn't matter which terminal was removed first. "But, as we learned that hard way that day, this isn't true. It does matter which is removed and replaced first. "Why is that?" Think you know? Drop us a note via http://www.cartalk.com/email/email.html If you're right and we select your answer, we'll ship you a $26 Shameless Commerce Gift Certificate. Want to listen to Raymond obfuscate the puzzler in person? Listen anytime, at http://www.cartalk.com/content/puzzler/ ************ Remember last week's puzzler? Going for a Run That's "No Sweat" RAY: This puzzler comes to us from Doug Mayer who, actually, works for us. TOM: Wait a minute. None of those guys work. RAY. Right. Let's just say he's around us. Anyway, here's Mayer's puzzler. Mayer and his pal Mike get up every morning and run through the mountains, in North Moosejaw, New Hampshire, where they live. In the winter, however, they take a break-- since it's what? 40 below zero with 50 mph winds. Instead... they ski. But, on the days when it's even too cold to ski, then they drag their frostbitten appendages to the local gym. It's 80 degrees warmer there-- plus they get to watch Oprah on the TV and try to impress the babes. Mayer sets his treadmill to 12 percent-- the exact grade of the trail up nearby Mount Washington, one of their favorite runs. He runs at 5.8 miles per hour for 4 miles, by which point he's praying for a massive coronary to end his workout. After the requisite 42 minutes, he's covered in sweat and the treadmill is rusting. Well, this last week, spring finally arrived in North Moosejaw, and Mike and Doug decided to go out and test themselves on Mount Washington, and see how their training stacked up against the real thing. They set their watches, put out their cigars and ran at exactly 5.8 miles per hour for four miles at a 12 percent grade. There was no wind and, what's more, they remarked how interesting it was that the temperature was 62 degrees that day-- exactly what it was in the gym. Though they have no way of measuring it, it turns out that even the relative humidity was exactly the same. In other words-- same weather, same speed, same grade, same everything. Yet, when they're done, they're not sweating at all. Why was that? Here's why: http://www.cartalk.com/content/puzzler/ So, did you figure it out? Yours in weekly puzzler torment, Maury Maille Puzzler Dissemination Specialist Car Talk Plaza ******************* Doing some car research? Via our lousy, little homepage you can... *Check important safety recalls *See what your car is worth right now *Check rebates and incentives on new cars *Search your town for new or used cars for sale *Place an ad to sell your car that'll actually be seen by people in your area *Research and compare new vehicles *Get the latest car news *Kill time until 5:00 p.m. rolls around and you can pack it in. *It's all at http://www.cartalk.com *********************************** Got more time to kill? This past weekend's new, lousy Car Talk show is now on the web site, at http://www.cartalk.com/Radio/Show/ ******************** Help Ray lose the night sweats he's been getting, trying to come up with a decent puzzler each week. E-mail him your suggestion any time, via http://www.cartalk.com/email/email.html ******************** Puzzled out? You can unsubscribe to the Car Talk Puzzler Psychic Friends Network anytime at http://www.cartalk.com/ct/maillist.jsp?puzzler_list=subscribe#psychic We'll forgive you.
