Can you solve the human cannonball riddle? - Alex Rosenthal

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They call you the human cannonball. Your act involves flying through rings of fire, bouncing through a trampoline course, and catching the trapezist in the grand finale. Today’s pre-flight test fails dramatically, and upon inspection, your cannon has clearly been sabotaged. Unfortunately, it’s too late to abort the launch. Can you fix it in time to catch the trapezist? Alex Rosenthal shows how.

Lesson by Alex Rosenthal, directed by Igor Coric, Artrake Studio.

This riddle is adapted from a puzzle that appears in Boris A. Kordemsky's The Moscow Puzzles

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[SuperSylar]

The ringmaster have an invoice in the pocket with the name of the company that brought the energy cells, therefore he KNEW how many cells were supposed to be brought and how the builder did for the cannon to work, so for him it was easy to sabotage it.


But it was indeed the Tamer that did the act, as in 0:43 is possible to see one of his missing shoulder things in the machine.

Also, the Clown knew about it but tried to stop the Tamer; his flower release a yellow liquid and there's a small puddle to yellow liquid close to the Tamer's feet at 4:47.

This is downright an Ace Attorney case lol

[HeheKnight]

This canonball person is way too smart to work in the circus. he thought of all this stuff in minutes, he might want to change job.

[oliverpepit]

Thanks ted ed! Now I'll definitely know what to do if someone sabotages my cannon before a circus show!

[melkor]

I generally can't solve these riddles but it's fun watching them anyways.

Edit: I never imagined so many people would resonate with this.

[ultimamega]

You can also use normal logic to solve the "Who Sabotaged You?" Question:

- The Clown is in love with the trapezist and was waiting for her with gifts after we solved the riddle, its pretty unlikely he would try to cause her death by tampering with a clearly dangerous act unless he was heartbroken, but he waiting for her with gifts shows us that clearly that wasnt the case.

- The Ringleader while having a problematic opinion about the press and being show as greedy doesnt have a good motive to sabotage you because by doing so he would cause himself a lot of problems and ultimately lose a lot more of money than the press would give him (Causing the deaths of two of his actors would require him to find new actors to replace them, also while the police investigate the incident he will be forced to shut down the circus until they are done, and we arent even talking about the risks of being caught or even be placed as a suspect because being framed as a corrupt Ringleader who caused the deaths of two of his actors for money will make him go out of business pretty quickly).

- Finally The Lion Tamer has a pretty solid motive: Wanting you out of the picture so he can be the main act, also by looking at the clues given in the video (specially the last part where he looks distressed at your survival) you can pretty much deduce he is the culprit, and he fears that you now are coming after him.

[shinyagumon]

I like the little Easter Eggs to other riddles in these!

Either that or this is the continuation of the Death Race riddle and uncle Slades nephew joined the circus after surviving the race.

[somedumbbaby]

I love how they connect the previous riddles with each-other.

[EmeraldShine]

I'm proud of myself for figuring this one out pretty much entirely on my own, but if I actually only had a few minutes max to solve it that trapezist would be doomed--

[omegadeadpool]

The Saboteur is not the Ringmaster because he already has sold enough tickets and is Practically Rich with that Box he is Holding

The Clown would not wish to kill the one he loves considering that he is still waiting with gifts for the Trapeze Artist

That just leaves the Tamer and we can see him visibly frustrated at our success, both as the first act and for solving his Sabotage

[creativename]

It’s simple
Step 1: explain to the audience that you and the trapeze artist have green eyes

Step 2: everyone will allow you both to leave
Edit: i removed my thanks for the likes things they can be annoying

[davea]

Answer: The human cannonball went to the wrong career adviser. 🤪

[Mightyno]

OMG I JUST SOLVED MY FIRST TED ED RIDDLE BEFORE THE REVEAL, IM SO HAPPY!

[dragonguy]

Wait A minute! 1:00 that's the uncle from the death race riddle!!!

[Funaru]

Once it became clear that this was a maths problem my brain instantly switched off.

[Mirvana]

The Lion Tamer sabotaged the cannon.
Motive: Eliminating two other acts so he becomes the main attraction.
Evidence: The Lion Tamer's outfit in both shots only shows a single tassel on his shoulders. At 1:43, a matching tassel to the one he's likely missing can be seen stuck between two of the energy cells. He's also the only one of the three whose demeanor and expression change after successfully thwarting the sabotage.

The Clown has no motive to sabotage, as doing so would also hurt the trapezist he loves.
The Ring Leader has no evidence. The invoice to the energy cell company is only circumstantial, not direct proof. As depicted, he appears in charge of the circus's money, which having the invoice only indicates that he likely had simply paid for the cells (as well at other equipment at the circus).

[Dther]

It took me 30 minutes to solve this riddle. That trapeze artist died 25 minutes ago.

[mtbmulti]

Good to see Kanoli is still inventing after his racing mishap. Good for him.

[zilelim]

Based on 0:40 and the rest of the video, the Lion Tamer probably did it. As said in the video, you and the trapezist would both die if the cannon still fired, and the clown wouldn’t want the Trapezist to die since he’s in love, so unlikely. Ringleader wants to sell more tickets (more profit) and thus wouldn’t want such a big accident to happen, since that’ll mean people running away and likely not buying his tickets anymore. Just by the process of elimination, the lion tamer did it. Plus he wants to be the main act, so maybe he’ll sabotage the main character to eliminate competition?

[ignatioandi]

I think it's the tamer

Note from 0:39
The clown is in love with the trapezist so he would be not kill someone who supposed to save the trapezist during the act

The ringleader is not likely to kill his main actor

Meanwhile the tamer, he wants to be the main actor so he got jealous and in most likely scenario the ringleader would make him replace the main attraction to save money

[TehhCake]

When the "bios" showed up I thought, "this is going to be a whodunnit mystery"
Then I saw the maths. Oh no. Another situation where I'd be screwed if it were me. (Although I do like how that was solveable as well!)