Author Topic: The Wizard Of Oz......A teaser FOUR the FOURum  (Read 2451 times)

Offline pete.r.

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The Wizard Of Oz......A teaser FOUR the FOURum
« on: April 16, 2013, 10:01:11 PM »
Here are the first three sentences of The Wizard Of Oz.


Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with uncle Henry, who
was a farmer, and aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife.


Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles.


There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room, and this room contained
a rusty looking cooker stove, a cupboard for the dishes, table, three or four chairs and the beds.



Pick any word from the first sentence, count the number of letters in the word you have chosen,
and move forward this number of spaces to the next word
(for example if you picked the word " lived,"  which has 5 letters move 5 words further on to  the
word "the" which has 3 letters and then 3 words further on to the word "prairies" and keep
going until you reach the third sentence that begins There were...)
As soon as you reach this third sentence note the word where your count first stops.

You will have stopped on the word FOUR
                                   >18<

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Offline Loopy

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Re: The Wizard Of Oz......A teaser FOUR the FOURum
« Reply #1 on: April 16, 2013, 10:05:10 PM »
Yep, I did!  :D


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Offline Gillian G

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Re: The Wizard Of Oz......A teaser FOUR the FOURum
« Reply #2 on: April 16, 2013, 10:34:38 PM »
OK how does that work  >18<    >39< Pete.r
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Offline pete.r.

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Re: The Wizard Of Oz......A teaser FOUR the FOURum
« Reply #3 on: April 16, 2013, 11:42:11 PM »
O.K. Here goes.
This is not a trick, they are the actual first 3 lines of the Wizard of Oz.
This effect is called the Kruskal count named after the mathematician Martin Kruskal
who discovered it in the 1970's.
His research showed that word chains started some place at the beginning of a text at some point intersect
at a keyword.After that point the chains must become identical, as the text gets longer the
likelihood of this magical coincidence increases.
Seems a little weird but thats what the maths says, it will work with the right kind of text.
                                                                          >98<
Cut out the strong to help the weak

Offline Jane

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Re: The Wizard Of Oz......A teaser FOUR the FOURum
« Reply #4 on: April 17, 2013, 06:07:45 AM »
 >98< Indeed, but very clever!  :)

Offline Gillian G

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Re: The Wizard Of Oz......A teaser FOUR the FOURum
« Reply #5 on: April 17, 2013, 11:09:25 AM »
Thanks for the explanation Pete.r   
I understand completely now,  :D
 
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Offline Loopy

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Re: The Wizard Of Oz......A teaser FOUR the FOURum
« Reply #6 on: April 17, 2013, 01:50:34 PM »
Thanks for the explanation Pete.r   
I understand completely now,  :D

Me too!   >118<


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Offline MidnightZodiac

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Re: The Wizard Of Oz......A teaser FOUR the FOURum
« Reply #7 on: April 18, 2013, 04:44:00 PM »
I've seen this done with cards. The pack is laid out and the 'volunteer' picks a card in the top row then moves along the pack guided by the number of spots on the card (Picture cards count as 1 spot) etc etc. The magician can't tell where they started from, but by running a couple of tests in his head, he can tell on which card the volunteer will end up. Couldn't see Tommy Cooper doing it that well though... ;D

To be honest I'd never given it any thought about using letters/words the same way, but thinking about it the principle is exactly the same. Nice one Pete.r
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