ERJ Brainteaser: July

Question 3: Make the connection

What connects the following famous names: Alexandre Dumas, Bolivar, Charles de Gaulle, Émile Zola, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Francois Mitterand, Garibaldi, Pablo Picasso, Pasteur, Pierre & Marie Curie...

Answer: These are all names of Metro stations in Paris, or as Stephan Paischer replied ‘ce sont tous des noms de stations de métro à Paris’. Bien joué a: Stephan Paischer, head of product management special products, Semperit AG Holding, Vienna, Austria; John Bowen, consultant, Bromsgrove, UK; Andrew Knox, Rubbond International, Ohé en Laak, The Netherlands; Michele Girardi, Scame Mastaf Spa, Suisio, Italy; Sudi Sudarshan, strategic market & technology insights lead, Bridgestone Americas, Inc., USA; et tous ceux qui ont essayé.

Question 2: Next number

3, 12, 156, ?,

Answer: This week’s tricky teaser proved no match for a good number of readers, who worked out the sequence as n^2 + n (ie 3, 12 (3*4), 156 (12*13), 24492 (156*157)) – making the answer 24492. Very well done, in order of correct reply, to: John Bowen, consultant, Bromsgrove, UK; Stephan Paischer, head of product management special products, Semperit AG Holding, Vienna, Austria; Andrew Knox, Rubbond International, Ohé en Laak, The Netherlands; Michele Girardi, Scame Mastaf Spa, Suisio, Italy; Sudi Sudarshan, strategic market & technology insights lead, Bridgestone Americas, Inc., USA; Jonas Dispersyn, innovation platform leader – superior tire performance, rubber reinforcement, NV Bekaert SA, Deerlijk, Belgium; Vasiliy Kozlov, LLC Benefit-Him, Russia; Frank Bloemendaal, manager R&D, Polycomp, Vorden, The Netherlands; James Lee, principal, HJLA Group (details requested); Randa Tharwat, international trade manager, Nacita Automotive, Giza, Egypt; David Mann, key account manager, SPC Rubber Compounding, UK. Well done also to many others who had a go.

Question 1: Country links?

What links the following?

Cyprus (29), France (87), Germany (32), Poland (84)

Answer: A morale booster this week for our question-setters: managing to keep our top Brainiacs at bay at least for a day. But then the still fairly obscure clue ‘Copper’ on Tuesday unlocked the puzzle (Solutions below) for a select few. Very well done, in order of reply, to: Stephan Paischer, head of product management special products, Semperit AG Holding, Vienna, Austria; John Bowen, consultant, Bromsgrove, UK: Jonas Dispersyn, innovation platform leader, Rubber Reinforcement, NV Bekaert SA, Deerlijk, Belgium: Andrew Knox, Rubbond International, Ohé en Laak, The Netherlands; Michele Girardi, Scame Mastaf Spa, Suisio, Italy: Mehmet Koral, Erhardt-Leimer representative for Turkey, managing director, C&C Endüstriyel Danismanlik, Egitim ve Mümessillik Ltd, Göztepe, Istanbul, Turkey. 

Solutions

Stephan Paischer

29 – Copper – Cu – Cyprus

87 – Francium – Fr – France

32 – Germanium – Ge – Germany

84 – Polonium – Po - Poland 

John Bowen

These are the atomic numbers of the elements named after theses countries:

29, Copper, Cyprus

87, Francium, France

32, Germanium, Germany

84, Polonium, Poland 

Andrew Knox

Answer: periodic table of elements.

The number in brackets is the periodic number for the element forming the first two letters of the preceding country name, except of course that Cu, copper (element 29) are not the first two letters of Cyprus, but are contained in the name Cyprus. 

Jonas Dispersyn

Michele Girardi

Cyprus (Greek) > Cuprum (Latin) > Cu (29)

France > Fr (87)

Germany > Ge (32)

Poland > Po ( 84)

Mehmet Koral

The common link for these country names is that they are all linked to the element names in the Periodic Table.

1. Cyprus: Along with the symbol (Cu) for Copper, was derived from the Latin cuprum, "from the island of Cyprus" (the leading supplier of copper in the Mediterranean at the time of the Roman empire). Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29.
2. Francium: it is named after France, the country in which it was first isolated. Francium is a chemical element with the symbol Fr and atomic number 87.
3. Germanium: it is named after the Latin word for Germany, Germania, which has the atomic symbol Ge and the atomic number 32.
4. Polonium: it is named for Marie Curie's native country of Poland which is the homeland of Marie Curie ( Marie Sk?odowska Curie ) who found with her husband Pierre Curie.