Everyday Einstein – 8.17.2010

From Martin Gardner’s Perplexing Puzzles and Tantalizing Teasers

“Professor Windbag likes to use big words and say everything in the most complicated way he can. When he handed a birthday present to his wife he said:

‘My dear, here is a diminutive, aurum, truncated cone, convex on its summit and semiperforated with symmetrical indentations and a hollow interior.’

Can you guess what is in the box?”