The South Park boys try to solve
The Case of the Wrong Dredel.
The Case of the Wrong Dredel.
Jim Olson wrote:
It's made of metal, which seems to be allowed. (I've looked online, they come in all sorts of materials, some are quite lovely)
Aside from needing a polish, I can't spot the flaw.
* * * * * * *
I may just possibly have stumbled onto the most subtle PizzaQ I've ever posted.
The Answer isn't subtle. When I finally spill it, you'll immediately agree: It's clear, simple, beyond controversy.
But the subtlety of the problem is the reason I'm being so cheap and ungenerous with the hints.
Well, okay, here's a hint I sent separately to Steve. I sent him the images. He's Observant, and knows far far more about matters Jewish than I -- the Huckleberry Finn of World Jewry -- ever will.
I told him that although I love my beautiful antique(ish) silver(ish) dredel, I've always suspected that the silversmith who created it wasn't Jewish.
Being Jewish or knowing lots about Jewish stuff is No Help Whatsoever in solving the dredel PizzaQ.
(There actually is a famous Jewish fictional detective, Rabbi David Small, who solves his murder cases in a little Massachusetts seaport town using Talmudic logic.)
But I'll re-state the only hint I'm willing to part with:
ALMOST nobody could solve this mystery just by looking at these images.
But a brilliant detective like Columbo or Hercule Poirot (a detective so brilliant that he or she could only exist in fiction) could solve the mystery if the only evidence at his/her disposal were these blogged or e-mailed images. And if all he/she knew about dredels is what Vleeptron, in the last two posts, has explained and illustrated about dredels.
Okay -- because I'm such a generous, helpful guy, here's ONE MORE HINT.
Let's call in Sherlock Holmes to solve The Case Of The Wrong Dredel. The skill he'd need is a skill he used in only one of his cases: "The Musgrave Ritual."
4 comments:
eh, where is the spin ? you have only shonw us two thirds of the dreidel, thats like an image of Cindy Crawford without legs. can you physically use the dreidel ? does it spin ? or is it just like a paperweight ? Are we from the comment sewer pit allowed to ask 20q ? blast, i wanted to watch the new blade runner 5dvd box set tonight and you got me thinking about bloody dreidels
Unglaublich! The greatest Suisse Detektiv of all, Herr Kommissar Hans Berlach, has solved the Mystery of the Wrong Dredel!
The verdammt crazy thing doesn't spin! You try as hard as you can and it always falls right over! Not even one single revolution!
Which you can't exactly see from just looking at the images.
BUT ... from the images, and the clue that it is Solid Metal (not hollow inside), a brilliant detective COULD measure it and study its 3D Solid Geometry, and realize that it is very seriously Topheavy and could not possibly spin on its point!
The clue about "The Musgrave Ritual" -- this is the only Sherlock Holmes story in which Holmes uses math (high-school trigonometry) to Solve The Mystery.
He needs to compute the length of the shadow of a giant tree -- but the tree was chopped down decades ago, the tree no longer exists.
But his friend, the lord of Musgrave Manor, remembers that when he was a boy, his tutor taught him trig by making him compute the height of the great tree by measuring the length of the tree's shadow. The boy, now grown up, remembered the height of the tree from his many boyhood lessons.
With the height of the vanished tree now known, Holmes was able to use a short stick and its shadow to compute the length of the vanished tree's shadow.
Herr Kommissar Berlach wins the pizza!
(And if you like detective stories, they don't get any better than the mysteries of Durrenmatt!)
Ok. That was way too subtle. I wouldn't have been able to pick that just from the picture.
Well, that was why I stressed this hint: Solving it using just the images would require one of those fictional superdetectives whose feats of deduction just blow us ordinary schlubs out of the water.
Of course that's why they're fictional: The author knows the answer in advance.
The other hint -- well, EVERY Jew on Earth has played the dredel game as a little kid, so every Jew on Earth who spun a dredel that wouldn't spin would instantly ask: What the hell is wrong with this crazy dredel? That's why I'm certain the silversmith -- artistically a very talented artist -- wasn't Jewish.
But from the images alone, Sherlock Holmes (or Kommissar Berlach) COULD deduce that this dredel won't spin. (Or, as they say in the South: That dog won't hunt.)
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