Entries Tagged 'Riddles' ↓

Solve for x:
1. XLGEBRAX
2. xray = black + white
3. 2x or not 2x. That is the question.
4. (9 + 7x/2 = (4 - 2x (6 -2x
5. Drifxod
6. $ = mxy

Solve: (hint: “When in Rome…”)
7. n1ne
8. sk2ng
9. f4e
10. se5en
11. mo6ng
12. s9
13. e10it

Source and answers to follow.

A doozy. Using a single straight line to the left of the equals sign, make the following statement true:

5+5+5=550

Think about this one. It’s worth it. There are two correct answers. If you give up (but don’t!), you can go google it.

Be sure to watch it twice.

You are presented with ten burlap bags full of coins. Nine of these bags contain counterfeit coins; one bag contains real gold coins. A counterfeit coin is visually identical to a real coin, and you do not know which bag contains the real gold.

Each counterfeit coin weighs exactly 1 gram, while each real gold coin weighs 1.1 grams. You are given a digital scale, the type you’d see in a delicatessen, which accurately measures weight the nearest hundredth of a gram.

If you can identify which bag has the gold, you can keep it. You are allowed one and only one measurement on the scale, so choose wisely. You are permitted to open the bags.

Good luck.

Lizzie Widdicombe of The New Yorker. Wrote an article about the bash. Dude, this woman is a genius. What makes me label her so? Read, count, and pay close attention.

Been called:

An ace; a bad lad; jail cell bailed; a doodlin’ non-blonde; ice-cold and doobie-enabled; a b-load-laced lid; a candid and jaded lion; banned and canned; all bad boiled blood and bone; old, lean, and clean; bedded and laid; a doll bod, dialed and dancin’; a bed candle (LOL); nailed and loaded; an idol, blinded and alone; a diced cod; lanced, billed, and bleedin’; a cable dojo; a bland Alice dinin’ on noodle; a coiled li’l bell; Dean de Decadence; one bad loin libido job; a bold line; El Bien Inca; an alien; a boo-boo-clad ailed Jane; an adjoined abode de la Dandelion; ended; a bee-lined cell-nabbed coal-dabbed deed doin’ Don Leon; an oceanic canine dad; a coldie-led ball Dane, a needed cane; a band lead; a decided non-Celine Dion jab; and an idle loon, coined “lone dood”.

And J-A-C-E D-A-N-I-E-L A-L-B-A-O.

Done.

Imagine you have a large glass bottle with a goose trapped inside it. How can you get the goose out of the bottle without breaking the bottle or harming the goose?

A classic exercise in creative thinking, with a solution that offers the essence of how to think about design. Your task: Without taking pen off paper, and using only four straight lines, connect the nine dots.

I’ll post the answer in a few days.

The Traveler’s Dilemma

When playing this simple game, people consistently reject the rational choice. In fact, by acting illogically, they end up reaping a larger reward–an outcome that demands a new kind of formal reasoning

By Kaushik Basu

Lucy and Pete, returning from a remote Pacific island, find that the airline has damaged the identical antiques that each had purchased. An airline manager says that he is happy to compensate them but is handicapped by being clueless about the value of these strange objects. Simply asking the travelers for the price is hopeless, he figures, for they will inflate it. Instead he devises a more complicated scheme. He asks each of them to write down the price of the antique as any dollar integer between 2 and 100 without conferring together. If both write the same number, he will take that to be the true price, and he will pay each of them that amount. But if they write different numbers, he will assume that the lower one is the actual price and that the person writing the higher number is cheating. In that case, he will pay both of them the lower number along with a bonus and a penalty–the person who wrote the lower number will get $2 more as a reward for honesty and the one who wrote the higher number will get $2 less as a punishment. For instance, if Lucy writes 46 and Pete writes 100, Lucy will get $48 and Pete will get $44.

What numbers will Lucy and Pete write? What number would you write?

=continued=

One thousand students stand in line outside a school, each numbered 1 to 1000. In the school are one thousand closed lockers, each numbered 1 to 1000. One by one, the students go into the school and “change the state” of the lockers. That is, if a locker is open, they close it; if it is closed, they open it.

Here are the rules:

The first student goes in and changes the state of each locker. The second student goes in and changes the state of every other locker. The third student goes in and changes the state of every third locker. The fourth student goes in and changes the state of every fourth locker. And so on. Eventually, the thousandth student goes in and changes the state of the thousandth locker.

After all one thousand students have completed their task, how many lockers are open?

Friend, teacher, mathematician extraordinaire, and General Director of Reprise Records Andreas Wettstein demonstrates how to hit the Pause button just before discussing the gorgeous cello section on The Unforgettable Fire’s title track.

See anything familiar on the whiteboard behind him?

Incidentally, I just noticed that this site has become #1 on Google for “U2 Riddle”. No wonder I’ve been getting so many emails from women around the world asking me for Bono’s cell number.

Here’s a gorgeous logic problem I heard recently:

You’re given two ropes and a lighter. These are your only tools.

Each of the two ropes, when lit on one end, will take exactly one hour to burn all the way through to the other end. However, neither of the ropes burn at a constant rate. For instance, it may take 59 minutes to burn through the first half of a rope, and then burn through the second half in the final minute. (Imagine that the ropes vary in thickness in density.) Also, the ropes are not identical, so Rope A does not necessarily burn at the same rate of Rope B.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

Measure a period of 45 minutes.

Enjoy.

You’re driving in a car at a constant speed. To the left of your vehicle, the surface on which you’re traveling drops off sharply. To your right, there’s a fire engine traveling at the same speed. You’re sandwiched by two galloping horses in front of and behind you, both of which are the same size as your car and traveling at the same speed.

Question: What must you do to safely get out of this dangerous situation?

Click and drag your mouse from star to star to find out.

Answer: * Get your drunk ass off the merry-go-round.*

Mr. Brick and Mr. Brack hire a sign painter to paint a new sign for their office. It should say “Brick and Brack”. When the painter shows them his finished work, Brick points out a problem with the sign. His statement is a single sentence, grammatically correct, that contains the same word five times in a row.

What did he say?