Here's a more spatial puzzle I came up with my freshman year in college.

(This puzzle requires some rudimentary drawing skills or a good ability to visualize what I describe below. Graph paper would help, but CAD programs = cheating.)

Draw two perpendicular lines of equal length bisecting each other. (It should look like an "X"). Now draw two lines, each one connecting the opposite sides of sides of the "X" (like the top and bottom). The object should now look like a simplified hourglass or bow-tie shape. For clarification, each of the two triangles are right triangles (interior angles of 90

 

pm sent

 

'smyroad has crushed this puzzle with his solutions! in fact, he combined aspects of the 2 different shapes I was thinking of to make other solutions I hadn't considered. we're talkin' complete topological dominance.

we are still debating the finer points of a few of his other possible solutions, but let it be known that 'smyroad blew through all the pzzlz I posted ("The Perfect Watch", "The Shapes", and Einstein's "Who keeps the fish?")

 

Your puzzle is geometrical, not topological.

I know; I'm a topologist.

Expect another PM late this week.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by magician

 

I'm kinda missing the point of the puzzle ... to realize/describe an object that appears like the described hourglass shape when viewed from (say) the front, side, and above?

 

TTT

 

I really have no idea wtf you're asking in this one trit What does the hourglass sketch have to do with the shape that you have to draw? Im with so_weahd

 

awww, c'mon. smyroad and magician were able to understand my english and solve the puzzle, so I know my description is adequate.

just draw the shape as I describe it on a piece of paper. it'll become clearer. (the shape is *similar* to an hourglass shape, or a bowtie if you lay it on it's side. I'm not asking you to draw an actual hourglass... draw the two right triangles as I described. the shape is the 2 right trianges.)

 

I get the shape drawn, that's the easy part. What I dont understand is how you can rotate a 2-D object and have it look like anything but a flat piece of paper through the x and y planes