By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Since this is the time of year for Easter eggs, here is a Chinese puzzle. The object is to break the egg into nine pieces, as shown, and rearrange them into the shape of a bird. Hundreds of distinct birds can be made by arranging the nine pieces in different ways.
So here is a competition. Whoever produces the best selection of birds and sends the drawings to info@lordmoncktonfoundation.com will win the right to nominate a charity to which I shall send $100.
Happy Easter to one and all!
HenryP: That is a well written nice homily. Happy Easter all.
Am I allowed to stick the pieces, to a bird, and photograph it?
The Con-Man..
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/the-con-man/
Dennis Kuzara says:
March 31, 2013 at 11:17 am
Using the process of elimination, since eggs can’t come, it had to be the chicken
Haha! I like that!
Shouldn’t this contest be for one of those magical Easter Egg laying Rabbits?
And now because of the Men’s Journal ad my kids want a Glamper in their back yard.
dp says
All the tangrams you show are birds in profile. You could have them from the front, read, top and underside, or even three-quarters view. March 31, 2013 at 10:14 am
ralfellis says March 31, 2013 at 11:24 am
Ah, but what of Osiris, and her search for …?
“””””…..
resembling a bird.
Ian E says:
March 31, 2013 at 10:18 am
Birds are three-dimensional, so the puzzle Sorry, Milord……””””
Sorry, I don’t think so. If you examine say just one feather, You will see that birds are fractal; so definitely not of integer dimensions.
So Lord Christopher one, Ian E zero.
Besides, all these years, I thought it was the Easter Bunny that layed the Easter eggs; when did the birds ge tin on it ?
Dennis Kuzara says: March 31, 2013 at 11:17 am
… As far as the mystery of which came first, the chicken or the egg …. it was the chicken.
Using the process of elimination, since eggs can’t come, it had to be the chicken,
Aye, laddie. It’s chickens all the way down.
I have a lot of respect and admiration for Lord Monckton and certainly would not like this to be taken in a bad way, but it might cost more than $100 worth of his and his staff’s time to open the emails and decide the winner – not to mention the admin costs of the receiving charity in processing the $100.
My point is that $100 is too small an amount for this kind of competition although I agree that it is good to give to charity and nothing is better than something etc, blah, blah, blah.
@dp – link to “Instructables”
Yep – this reminds of the exercise of “Balancing 14 nails on 1 nail”. I once got credited for being a genius because I pretended to work it out from scratch. Thing was, I had spent a lot of time sitting under tarps on wet construction sites …
All very interesting, but does it explain the need to bite the head off of every chocolate rabbit within sight ?
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Dah! There were eggs long before there were chickens. The dinosaur comes to mind. Ancestors of the chickens. 🙂
Dennis Kuzara says:
…..
Using the process of elimination, since eggs can’t come, it had to be the chicken,
/end quote
Actually (pedant at work !) it was the egg – a not quite chicken (or an almost chicken if you prefer) laid an egg that became the 1st chicken…….
I choose the original picture in the post for submission. Afterall, less a discussion about Platypus, it has bird in it somewhere in the past :-}
Robert of Ottawa says: March 31, 2013 at 3:36 pm
Ah, but what of Osiris, and her search for …?
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Why do you think Magdalene was named after a tower??
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Another tragic consequence of global warming –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21991622
wws says: March 31, 2013 at 1:53 pm
re: Isis, Esther, Easter – and the Babylonian version of the name was Ishtar.
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And Ashtoreth, and Astarte, and the Eastern Star (under which a certain birth was alledged to have happened). The Eastern Star was, of course, Venus (ie, Aphrodite, Astarte, Ashtoreth, Istar, and Ast or Isis). Which is why the Order of the Eastern Star is a ladies Masonic institution.
The celebration of Ast, Est, Isis, Easter, for they are all one and the same thing – the spring celebration of new life and a resurrected world as spring arrives – is not Christian, it is as old as time itself.
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Sir, I do believe rabbit eggs are the only species of egg that might be cut in this way. You should include this in the instructions, lest someone stay up past midnight building birds from eggshells.
Unsuccessfully!
Grrr, late on this, but thanks Caleb for the good laugh!
I found a couple of ways to make the likeness of birds, mate, but neither of them is particularly, um attractive. You got in mind some hot babe?