17

A powerful wizard have to be able to:

  • Turn a plate into a pencil
  • Turn a ceramic bowl into a cue ball
  • Turn a kettlebell into a rubber band
  • Turn a plastic bag into a concrete block

Questions:

  1. What can he turn a scissor into?
  2. Name an object that a wizard cannot turn into anything else.
Chess960
  • 3,286
  • 1
  • 13
  • 41

1 Answers1

10

This may be wildly off, but I'm going to guess anyways:

A powerful wizard can turn an object into another object, that

1. has the same genus
2. can somehow be contained within it

Here's how these conditions would fit the given samples:

  • Turn a plate into a pencil

Both have zero holes, and a pencil can fit on a plate

  • Turn a ceramic bowl into a cue ball

Both have zero holes, and a cue ball would fit inside a ceramic bowl

  • Turn a kettlebell into a rubber band

Both have one hole, and a kettlebell is often wrapped in rubber (except for the handle) to prevent damage to the floor; the wrapping rubber is essentially a wide rubber band

  • Turn a plastic bag into a concrete block

Both have two holes (a plastic bag has handles, a concrete block has usually two holes, see picture below) and a concrete block would probably fit inside a plastic bag) enter image description here

So unless I am completely in the dark (absolutely not ruling that possibility out), a scissor can be turned into

a wedding band (one hole each, a scissor contains a metal ring that you put a finger through)

and something that cannot be transformed into anything else could be

a Klein bottle, whose inside isn't distinguishable from its outside, and therefore it cannot contain anything. In addition to this, it has a different genus from all objects in the real universe.

Wish me luck! :-)

Bass
  • 77,343
  • 8
  • 173
  • 360
  • 1
    Great work :) he cannot turn a scissor into that however. A rot13(grncbg jvgu ab yvq) is a more suitable answer. – Chess960 Jun 25 '18 at 21:14
  • 1
    Forgive me for nitpicking, but "scissor, singular" is either half a pair of scissors, and only has one hole, or it refers to the pair, which is two separate items, each of which have only one hole. Neither of these work for a rot13(grncbg jvgu ab yvq). – Chowzen Jun 26 '18 at 00:32
  • 4
    Obligatory abstruse goose – Ankoganit Jun 26 '18 at 03:20
  • I'm not sure what point 2 adds to this answer. Point 1 is sufficient by itself to explain the examples given, and there are no examples of objects which cannot be transmuted that would require the addition of point 2 to explain. By Occam's Razor, we can do away with point 2, surely? – EightAndAHalfTails Jun 26 '18 at 14:03
  • 1
    @EightAndAHalfTails to eliminate other possible answers that may be equally correct (word pattern, phrase pattern, etc.) – Chess960 Jun 26 '18 at 15:22
  • @MinhTran Sorry, I was referring to the requirement numbered 2 in this answer, not the one in your question. – EightAndAHalfTails Jun 26 '18 at 15:24
  • @EightAndAHalfTails, point 2 is necessary to tighten the fit. A rule consisting of the two related parts (both related to topology) is a lot more selective than just point 1 alone. If the answer only had point 1, it would be easy to come up with other rules that fit just as well or even better, which would make the solution ambiguous, thus ruining the puzzle. Finding another fitting rule as selective as points 1 and 2 combined, on the other hand, is much more difficult. – Bass Jun 26 '18 at 16:09