Story Problems
Might as well solve something….
Is there some irrelevant solving you’d like to do?
1. In 1884, Edwin Abbott2 wrote Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. Why is his last name squared?
2. The novel by Linda Heart, written in 2012 titled Mrs. Velvet and the Blue String Theory has an unusual style in its table of contents. The chapters are ordered with what type of pattern?
(a) harmonic (b) cardinal © Fibonacci (d) ordinal
3. If you were to read Marcel Proust’s book In Search of Lost Time from beginning to end how many words would have entered your eyes and brain?
(a) 1.2+ million (b) 918,736 © 501,337 (d) 200,001
4. If one Hobbit has one ring, and ten Hobbits have 50 rings, how many books about Hobbits and their rings exist in the famous story series written by J.R.R. Tolkien?
5. The shortest complete sentence in any book consists of two words and three letters. What is it?
6. The longest sentence in a novel contains how many words?
(a) 11,228 (b) 4,937 © 13, 955 (d) 373
7. Which number is the single-word name of a book’s title?
8. True or False: Bill Gates spent 10.8 million dollars to buy one book at an auction.
9. A two-part question: What calendar day, and what month, did UNESCO choose for World Book Day?
(a) 3 (b) 10 © 23 (d) 1
(a) January (b) November © April (d) August
10. The oldest book marked with a “published on” date is from what year?
(a) 868 (b) 969 © 652 (d) 323
ANSWERS: (1) Because his name is Edwin Abbott Abbott (2) The Fibonacci Sequence (3) c (4) Two: The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and The Hobbit (5) I am (6) Jonathan Coe wrote a 13, 955-word sentence in The Rotters’ Club (7) Ten, by Gretchen McNeil (8) False; he spent $30.8 million on Leonardo Da Vinci’s Codex Leicester (9) c and c (10) a and it is the Diamond Sūtra, held in the British Library, marked as published on May 11, 868.
