Complex Numbers

What's the Difference Between a Duck?

Not every question has an answer, as illustrated by this Cracked piece about riddles.

    Five Fictional Riddles That Can’t Be Solved  

By "fictional," they mean "appearing in works of fiction." Lots of riddles are fictional in that someone made them up.

The literary, cinematic and funny-paper canon is full of riddles because they’re as fun for the audience as they are dire for whichever hero must solve them to obtain the One Ring, whatever the hell a sorcerer’s stone is, etc.

The Sorcerer's Stone was meant to be the Philosopher's Stone, and it is called that in the book's original language. Of all the ways they dumbed down that series for an American audience, that was probably the worst.

The Philosopher's Stone was, historically, the hypothesized material that alchemists thought they could use to turn lead into gold, or confer eternal youth, or had whatever transformative properties were faddish back before science. Kind of the Unobtainium of its time, and its own unsolvable riddle. The more philosophical alchemists treated it not as an actual material, but a transformative idea for achieving enlightenment or whatever.

5. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Just a few pages after the Mad Hatter asks Alice, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” in the rant against modern math most beloved by hippies, the answer becomes clear: He doesn’t know.

Likely my first encounter with the subject at hand. Pretty sure it annoyed me back then, but it taught me an important life lesson: Not every question has an answer.

As the article notes, people have stumbled around trying to find an answer, but, like the search for a material Philosopher's Stone, answering it misses the entire point.

4. Life Is Beautiful

Toward the end of the movie, Lessing begs Guido for help with a riddle, translated to English, “Fat, fat, ugly, ugly / All yellow / If you ask me where I am, I say ‘quack, quack, quack’ / Walking along, I say ‘poo poo.’” Sound like nonsense? It is.

In contrast to the Mad Hatter thing, I've never encountered this, which apparently comes from an Oscar-winning movie. But even had I seen the movie, I think I might have accepted that for the near-Brechtian absurdity that it obviously is.

3. Twelfth Night

This takes some explanation; fortunately, the article does just that. But you'll have to see it there, because I can't do it any justice with small excerpts.

Our theory is that Shakespeare wrote fart jokes and never intended anyone to think this hard.

On that point, I have to agree with Cracked.

2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Every nerd’s favorite number is 42, supposedly “the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything” calculated by the supercomputer Deep Thought in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

It is now absolutely impossible to have a philosophical discussion about the meaning of life without someone shouting that number out.

In fairness, that someone is often me.

1. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Ah, yes, that other work of art that nerds can't help but quote. You know both this and #2 were created in the 1970s, right? Holy Grail in particular came out in 1974. For the math-challenged, that's 50 years ago.

Wait... Shakespeare's and Carroll's works are much older than that. Some of us nerds like to quote them, too.

This has given comedy nerds a handy call and response by which to identify each other but also an actual riddle: What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

It's true. I have been known to select people to hang out with based on whether they can do Holy Grail references. I knew one person who could quote the entire movie, verbatim.

That's dedication.

The real joke: It’s a trick. There’s no such thing as “airspeed velocity.” Sure, you could calculate the airspeed or the velocity of a swallow of any nationality.

"You're using coconuts."

Perhaps comedy is the actual Philosopher's Stone...