Imagine you open your favorite magic magazine, and see this ad:

THE "EAGLE" ROPE RESTORATION

A New Era rope restoration!

Think of it: The spectator hands you ANY piece of rope. He marks the exact center with a pen or crayon. You OPENLY cut the rope exactly into two pieces. The audience sees that there are two pieces. You place the cut rope behind your back for one second. When it is again shown, the rope is fully restored to its original length.

The rope is not switched. There are no loose bits of rope left over as in the old (and now obsolete) methods. The spectator may even cut the rope themselves!

How is this possible?





(Note to mods - Please trust me that I'm not exposing anything here, and this is a puzzle. Please don't remove this post.)

Not sure if this breaks the "no loose bits" part, but if the rope is cut in the middle _along_ the rope, you get two pieces of the original length. But restored? Nah.

Someone else?

/Tomas

Scott,

Not certainif this is a relevant question at this point but is the cut made in the "traditional" manner (In the center of a folded loop of rope) versus cutting the rope in half along the longitudinal axis (where you'd get two pieces of rope each of which is the original length of the rope).

As I say, I'm not certain that this information is relevant, I'm just trying to think outside the box a little.

Mike

Actually, Tomas got the right answer. You cut the rope in half lengthwise. Remember, I only said it was "restored" to its original length. I never said it was restored to its original width.

Sneaky. And fun that it was magic related.

Thanks,

/Tomas

This puzzle originally appeared in the April 1966 issue of Pallbearer's Review, and is credited to Jay "Volta" Weiler.

Besides the wonderful magic effects in there, they occasionally had wonderful puzzles.