Postal Predictions

Puzzler time!

Here we go.

You have to put yourself into this one and do some imagining. Here it is.

You get a letter in the mail predicting the winner of a heavyweight championship match a few weeks before the event.

There's no other information in the letter, just the prediction. Nothing else.

You don't take it seriously, thinking it's a prank from a friend. Nevertheless, the prediction turns out to be correct.

You receive subsequent letters predicting the winners of events a few days before they happen. The letters correctly predict the winners of the Heavyweight Championship, the World Series, the NBA Finals,
the most recent elections, and the World Chess Championship. They predict the NCAA basketball finals, and the Rose Bowl...

You are amazed. These letters are always correct in their predictions, even though some of these wins are upsets.

Shortly after the Rose Bowl, you receive a letter stating that if you send 10 grand to a certain address, one week before the Super Bowl, you'll receive a letter with the winner of that event.

The puzzler question is this.

Should you do it, and why?

Good luck.

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

Cloth to Metal

This is an historic puzzler. It goes all the way back to World War I. So no cheating and using Google to get your answer. Honest answers only!

Here we go.

At the beginning of the first World War, the uniform of the British soldiers included a brown cloth cap. They were not provided with metal helmets.

As the war went on, the army authorities and the War Office became alarmed at the high proportion of men suffering head injuries, of course.

They therefore decided to replace the cloth headgear with metal helmets. From then on, all soldiers wore the metal helmets.

Shockingly, the War Office was amazed to discover that there were more soldiers hospitalized with head injuries than ever before. It can be assumed that the intensity of fighting was the same before and after the change took place.

The puzzler question is this.

Why should the number of soldiers hospitalized for head injuries per battalion increase when the men were wearing metal helmets rather than cloth caps?