******* 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: A Frigid Flight to Safety RAY: Roger Meyer sent this puzzler in to us. I always attribute the puzzler. There are no innocents here at Car Talk. Here it is: A group of explorers were trapped in Alaska for the winter season. Stuck in the ice and snow, they only had one means of escaping to civilization before spring. They had in their possession an old World War Two airplane with skis, which they could use in the event of an emergency. The plane had a placard on the instrument panel that said, in bold red letters, "Do not attempt to start engine with oil temperature below -40 degrees Fahrenheit." Did I mention it was cold? Well, wouldn't you know it, but a medical emergency arose, and when the pilot checked the oil temperature gauge, he discovered it was broken. As luck would have it, this being an international kind of team, all of their instruments were in Centigrade. Unfortunately, nobody could remember the formula for converting Centigrade to Fahrenheit. Skip, who had been carefully looking over the engine for the last couple of days, emerges from-are you ready for this?-the inky shadows of the dimly lit Quonset hut. The others ask, "Do you know the formula for converting Centigrade to Fahrenheit?" He says, "I don't need no stinkin' formulas. But, I know you can start the engine. It will be all right." They say, "Okie dokie!" And, sure enough they start the engine up, and it's fine. Of course, the propeller fell off-- but that's another story. The question is, how did Skip know they could safely start the airplane's engine? 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? Attack of the Bucolic Plague RAY: This puzzler came to us a while ago-- January 1999, to be precise. It's from Professor Bruce Robinson at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Of course, I had to make a few modifications... TOM: He won't even want to be associated with it, once you're finished. RAY: I'm sure he'll send us an e-mail asking to have his name expunged. Here it is: "A dreaded new disease is sweeping across the countryside. It's called 'The Bucolic Plague.' If you're afflicted with it, you begin wandering around the woods aimlessly, until you finally collapse and die. The remedy is to lock yourself in the bathroom for two or three days, until the urge passes. "A test has been developed that can detect whether you have the disease. The test is 99 percent accurate. That is, if you have the disease, there is a 99 percent chance that the test will detect it. If you don't have the disease, the test will be 99 percent accurate in saying that you don't. "In the general population, 0.1 percent of the people have the disease-- that's one-tenth of one percent. "You decide to go for the test. You get your results: positive." Should you lock yourself in the bathroom and ask for a constant supply of magazines, or should you not be worried? And, the real question is, what is the probability that you actually have the Bucolic Plague? And here's the answer: 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.
