Seeing as I'm on a bit of a nostalgia kick at the moment anyway...one of my favorite growing-up memories is of visiting my grandparents in Vermont, and working out various lateral thinking puzzles (courtesy of my Grandpa Walter) at the dinner table.
Grandpa would give the premise of the puzzle at the beginning of the meal and all the kids present would ponder it as we ate, often ending up staying at the table trying to figure out what, exactly was the significance of the "53 bicycles" or the mysterious puddle of water, etc., etc., until long after the plates had been cleared away.
(click here to access other image sizes)
Now, the explanatory page on Lateral Thinking Puzzles I linked to at the beginning of this post contains the warning that "these puzzles have a tendency to be rather morbid." And this one is no exception, as the scenario began with my coming across a pile of dead bodies -- specifically, those of what appeared to be gnats and other small flying insects.
The image above shows part of the interior of my home. Specifically, it shows an area sort of between the main living room area (to the right) and the kitchen (to the left).
This is where we keep the dining table, a tall DVD cabinet, and (near the floor) a number of boxes that have been claimed by the cats as chewable indoor forts. A wire rack behind the table is used for storing random dry goods (e.g., bread) and sometimes vegetables and/or fruits. There is a large sliding door behind the table and storage rack (only it doesn't actually slide -- it's painted shut). There is one overhead light on the ceiling. There is a bag hanging on one chair, and a backpack on another. The floor is solid oak.
But anyway. The other day I was moving a bunch of art supplies off off the dining table (which seems to get used more often for projects than actual dining...), and as I went to pick up a sheet of scrapbook paper, I noticed a small but non-trivial pile of dead insects -- little gnatlike creatures mostly -- on top of said paper.
This puzzled me greatly as I hadn't recalled seeing a bunch of gnats flying around the house, nor did it make sense that they'd gather together for ritual suicide even if a lot of them somehow had gotten indoors.
So, for now this is where I shall stop describing the scenario. I eventually figured out how the bugs had gotten there, but it took some lateral thinking to do so -- and I am really curious as to whether any readers can figure it out as well based on the image and/or my description of the room above. The red "X" on the table shows where I found the bugs, but this is not a particularly pertinent detail.
Feel free to speculate away! First person to answer correctly wins...the satisfaction of being right!
UPDATE: As of Saturday, 4 September 2010, commenter Blork has successfully solved the puzzle. Others are of course free to try and figure it out for themselves -- just avoid reading the comments before speculating yourself, as they now contain spoilers.
(Also, this was fun. I'd like to keep posting this sort of thing, though next time I'll try and have it not be something to do with dead things!)
4 comments:
My initial best-guess is the light-bulb continued to influence the gnats flying behavior, and some/all of them injured themselves, by bouncing into the light-fixture, to a point where they could no longer fly in a stable way and/or feed themselves. The random assortment of paper and/or art-supplies may have been enough of a secondary-attraction for the gnats to seek resting-spots and/or food.
My inclination is that it has something to do with the overhead light, but you would have had to do something with the fixture in order for that to be involved. For example, if you had taken off the diffuser to change the bulb, and had placed the diffuser on the table (on top of the scrapbook paper) then the standard array of dried up flying insects that always accumulate in such fixtures might have fallen out onto the paper.
But you didn't mention having done anything with the lamp.
Another possibility -- again based on speculation of activities not mentioned -- is that you have previously stored the scrapbook paper in the wire storage bin, in a shelf below where you had stored some fruit. Over time, some various fruit flies that were partying with the fruit met their ends and died on the scrapbook paper, which you later moved to the table without noticing it was a tiny graveyard.
...or something like that!
Blork: And we have a winner!
You wrote: "For example, if you had taken off the diffuser to change the bulb, and had placed the diffuser on the table (on top of the scrapbook paper) then the standard array of dried up flying insects that always accumulate in such fixtures might have fallen out onto the paper."
That, in fact, is exactly what happened. The previous evening, the light had burned out, and my partner had changed the bulb. I'd been busy with something else at the time and had only half paid attention to this, so it took me a few minutes to recall the bulb change and figure that Matt had probably put the diffuser on the table during the process.
I purposely didn't mention anything being done to the light in my post because that would have given away the solution (obviously). That's part of how lateral thinking puzzles work...you basically offer only a few bare facts about a situation and then the challenge is to infer a rational explanation for how the situation came about.
I find these sorts of puzzles interesting in part because they generally involve needing some bit of scientific or physical knowledge -- in this case, I see the significant bit of critical background info as being the fact that insects tend to be attracted to lights. So, in any case, good job!
Yay! I am a lateral thinker! (Do I get a certificate?) ;-)
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