Problem. — (1) Two travelers, starting at the same time, went opposite ways round a circular railway. Trains start each way every 15 minutes, the easterly ones going round in 3 hours, the westerly in 2. How many trains did each meet on the way, not counting trains met at the terminus itself? (2) They went round, as before, each traveler counting as “one” the train containing the other traveler. How many did each meet?

Answers. — (1) 19. (2) The easterly traveler met 12; the other 8.

The trains one way took 180 minutes, the other way 120. Let us take the l.c.m., 360, and divide the railway into 360 units. Then one set of trains went at the rate of 2 units a minute and at intervals of 30 units; the other at the rate of 3 units a minute and at intervals of 45 units. An easterly train starting has 45 units between it and the first train it will meet: it does 2/5 of this while the other does 3/5, and thus meets it at the end of 18 units, and so all the way round. A westerly train starting has 30 units between it and the first train it will meet: it does 3/5 of this while the other does 2/5, and thus meets it at the end of 18 units, and so all the way round. Hence if the railway be divided, by 19 posts, into 20 parts, each containing 18 units, trains meet at every post, and, in (1) each traveler passes 19 posts in going round, and so meets 19 trains. But, in (2), the easterly traveler only begins to count after traversing 2/5 of the journey, i.e. on reaching the 8th post, and so counts 12 posts: similarly, the other counts 8. They meet at the end of 2/5 of 3 hours, or 3/5 of 2 hours, i.e. 72 minutes.

Forty-five answers have been received. Of these, 12 are beyond the reach of discussion, as they give no working. I can but enumerate their names, Ardmore, E. A., F. A. D., L. D., Matthew Matticks, M. E. T., Poo-Poo, and The Red Queen are all wrong. Beta and Rowena have got (1) right and (2) wrong. Cheeky Bob and Nairam give the right answers, but it may perhaps make the one less cheeky, and induce the other to take a less inverted view of things, to be informed that, if this had been a competition for a prize, they would have got no marks. (N.B. — I have not ventured to put E. A.‘s name in full, as she only gave it provisionally, in case her answer should prove right.)

Of the 33 answers for which the working is given, 10 are wrong; 11 half-wrong and half-right; 3 right, except that they cherish the delusion that it was Clara who traveled in the easterly train — a point which the data do not enable us to settle; and 9 wholly right.

The 10 wrong answers are from Bo-Peep, Financier, I. W. T., Kate B., M. A. H., Q. Y. Z., Sea-Gull, Thistle-Down, Tom-Quad, and an unsigned one. Bo-Peep rightly says that the easterly traveler met all trains which started during the 3 hours of her trip, as well as all which started during the previous 2 hours, i. e. all which started at the commencements of 20 periods of 15 minutes each; and she is right in striking out the one she met at the moment of starting; but wrong in striking out the last train, for she did not meet this at the terminus, but 15 minutes before she got there. She makes the same mistake in (2). Financier thinks that any train, met for the second time, is not to be counted. I. W. T. finds, by a process which is not stated, that the travelers met at the end of 71 minutes and 26½............