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In which we discuss still more 2012 facts—Matt Zinno points out that we are emerging from a spell of years with repeated digits, and in fact this is just about the longest run in the last 1000 years!  (So, folks, enjoy working out other long spells!)

Ben Anderman shares his online Princess-and-Suitor app.

And Kyle and I discuss some bar bets, including the great Barbette, shown here in a photo by Man Ray:

The challenge this week is to work out a strategy for the following game, that works 50% of the time on average:

The Victim believes you will lose twice as often as you win, so in order to make money, you should somehow get The Victim to bet a little bit more than you do, say $1.50 for each $1 you put up.

The Victim writes any three numbers on three pieces of paper, turns them over, and mixes them up. 

One by one you flip over a card, and then either stop, selecting that one, or discard it and move on. If you select the highest number overall, you win!

We discussed this in more generality a long time ago, but this version has the merit that it’s simple enough to demonstrate quickly, work out precisely why it works and on top of all that, of all the cases has the single highest probability of winning per round.

Let’s see: First, the “Big News“, a discussion of Carlos May, and another puzzle (a pretty easy one)

And still more 2012 facts! From Primepuzzles.net, we learn that

2012 =  (1+2-3+4)*(5-6+7*8*9)

and there’s still more amazing stuff there that we didn’t try to read on the air.

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Happy Palindrome Day! (For some of us)

Many listeners will have heard about the hunter who walks one mile south, one mile east, then one mile north—and is right back where he started. But in fact there are infinitely many places on the Earth where he could be, and in at least a couple of different ways!

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And what is the deal with Carlos May?

Another pursuit puzzle:

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Three crazed, robotic professors (or, if you prefer, “spiders”) try to chase down a psychic, but slightly faster student (the “fly”) along the edges of a tetrahedron. It’s easier, perhaps, to draw it out in the view at right below.

Is there a strategy that allows the professors to catch their prey?

Wait a sec– did we say the prey is SLOWER? Obviously one fast hunter can chase down slower prey, even if the prey knows exactly what’s coming…

Wait another sec– isn’t the point that the professors are morons and robotic? Maybe we DID state the puzzle correctly.

Long time listeners know it wouldn’t be the first time we’d inadvertently added a “meta-puzzle”, namely, to figure out what it is we’d meant to say!! Thanks Byon for pointing that out!

(PS Don’t forget the spoiler tag if you post spoilers in the comments!)

(PPS Apologies: our policy of holding back solutions sometimes gets the order of the comments pretty scrambled)