A puzzle becomes a conundrum

Jacki (Jakki in her latest correspondence --- she's living in AZ, any hints of culture war?) sends a link to an interactive puzzle with a parachutist and a lot of blue sky. We publish it (right column), and send the link to a few friends. We also try it ourselves --- it's fun, try it yourself. And if you don't think it's fun, try it nonetheless, it's billed as a reliable Alzheimer test, so you must do it anyhow. You need to know.

Let's start with us. We move around a few pieces, and find the whole thing eminently solvable, no need to go all the way. Sure, this kind of approach is called handwaving in mathematical circles, and it is frowned upon widely, but we have been frowned upon so much lately, we've frowned out. Handwaving is what we do. Go away, Dr. Alzheimer.

Next, we get a message from Sacha. He has solved it! (So you can trust FF's handwaving!). There's only one little problem. One piece of blue sky appears to be redundant, extraneous even. That unused leftover piece --- not a thing supposed to happen with a puzzle. Disquieting, isn't it? "Does it mean I have an especially bad case of Alzheimer?" Sacha writes peremptorily.

Then we get a message from Dirk. He solved it. The puzzle. Sure, we think, Dirk has been a Boeing 747 captain all his life, he knows about airborne. However, there's another little problem. There's no piece missing in Dirk's solution, which he proudly attaches as a screen shot to his victory letter.

Dirk's solution

Now what? Could it be true? Sacha has Alzheimer?  No, spare the thought, of course not, he doesn't, but he needs to know nonetheless, perhaps see a doctor, do some tests, see another doctor, get a second opinion. Better late than never. Early bird catches the worm. We have to inform Sacha of Dirk's solution.

Sacha returns his solution stante pede, also as a screen shot, accompanied by the desperate question: "What am I doing wrong?"

Sacha's solution

Interesting, isn't it? Perhaps it's something about the gravity. Sacha's parachutist is upside down, perhaps he needs less gravity, so one puzzle piece isn't needed? Perhaps Sacha doesn't have Alzheimer, or perhaps we do? This whole gravity thing, didn't it start when an apple fell on Newton's head? The crane traumatized by a hard, macrogeometric object? There are lots of apple trees in Sacha's garden...

Anyhow, we inform Dirk of Sacha's solution.  Dirk comes back with another sreenshot...

...and writes:

Sacha,

1st: Get organized! Separate the pieces, put them outside of the rectangle, count them (14).
2nd: Put them into the rectangle, piece by piece. That's all... :-)

The para glider is not supposed to make a looping!

Subsequently, there's some correspondence going back and forth between Dirk and Sacha to which we are not privy, but we are happy to learn that Dirk has generated more screenshots which should do away with any further misunderstandings once and for all:

Before

After

Very helpful, Dirk. A watertight solution. If only the Greeks would know about this, they would stop squandering our taxpayer's money and start solving puzzles efficiently. The Euro saved.

Sacha replies:

"Thanks for all the technical support, guys. At last I got it right-side-up, and no pieces left over! But something still doesn't look right.

My 6 year old daughter does it in under 60 seconds - alas, she won't let me watch how she does it."

Well, that's easy, Sacha, your daughter doesn't have Alzheimer. Oops.

And yet. Sacha sends another screenshot...

...which proves you can have Alzheimer and still have the last word.