From: MrMike@thestraws.prestel.co.uk (Mike)
Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet
Subject: [alt.brain.teasers] Re: Bridge/Bird
Date: 1 Mar 1998 18:20:47 GMT

Subject: Re: Bridge/Bird
From: softsofa@ix.netcom.com (softsofa)
Newsgroups: alt.brain.teasers

On Tue, 17 Feb 1998 03:41:12 GMT, theo@idirect.com (Theo J.) wrote:

>A truck weighing exactly 50,000 lbs starts to cross a 10 mile bridge
>that can only withstand a maximum of  50,000 lbs  or it breaks apart.
>Halfway across the bridge 2 birds land on the truck, each bird weighs
>.5 ounces and yet the bridge does not collapse. Why?


"I" quickly realized that fuel usage was too obvious to be the answer.
This left me with no other alternatives but those below:


Driver, worried about weight of truck, sweats away an ounce....

Trucks 18 tires wear one ounce away...

Sun goes down, reducing solar pressure on bridge by one ounce...

Bridge arched in middle, farther enough from center of earth for truck
to lose one ounce...

Truck's shape and speed produces aerodynamic effect that reduces truck
weight by one ounce...

Driver, seeing birds about to land, dives out of truck...

Truck is leaking (fuel, oil, anti-freeze, ice, compressed air,
information, or anything else weighing one ounce)...

Moon travels overhead, gravitational effects reduces truck weight a
total of one ounce...

Clown stowaway has been filling helium balloons in back...

The truck is troy, the bridge avoirdupois.

Paniced driver 'lets go' when he sees birds approach.  One ounce leaks
away under door...

Air friction heats air within truck, reducing weight just as if it
were a hot-air balloon.

The 2 birds, looking into each other's eyes, begin thrashing about.
Having at one another, flapping and screeching, produces a net truck
weight gain of zero.  We are, however, unable to tell if the birds
love or hate one another...