You are walking down a path when you come to two doors. Opening one of the doors will lead you to a life of prosperity and happiness, while opening the other door will lead to a life of misery and sorrow. You don't know which door leads to which life.
In front of the doors are two twin brothers who know which door leads where. One of the brothers always lies, and the other always tells the truth. You don't know which brother is the liar and which is the truth-teller.
You are allowed to ask one single question to one of the brothers (not both) to figure out which door to open.
What question should you ask?
Ask "If I asked your brother what the good door is, what would he say?"
If you ask the truth-telling brother, he will point to the bad door, because this is what the lying brother would point to.
Alternatively, if you ask the lying brother, he will also point to the bad door, because this is NOT what the truth-telling brother would point to.
So whichever door is pointed to, you should go through the other one.
Paul is 20 years old in 1980, but only 15 years old in 1985. How is this possible?
The years are in B.C., not A.D. as you probably assumed. Based on the system we use to number the years, the years counted down in B.C. (but they weren't counting backwards back then).
The Wilson family is a very wealthy family that lives in a big, circular home. One morning, Mr. Wilson woke up and saw a strawberry jam stain on his new carpet. He figured out that everyone who was there that morning had a jam sandwich. By reading the following excuses, figure out who spilled the jam.
Son: "I was outside playing basketball."
The Maid: "I was dusting the corners of the house."
Chef: "I was starting to make lunch for later."
Who is lying?
It was the maid. The house is circular, it has no corners.
A man eats dinner, goes up to his bedroom, turns off the lights, and goes to sleep. In the morning, he wakes up and looks outside. Horrified at what he sees, he hurls himself out his window to his death.
Why does he do this?
The man was a lighthouse operator. He wasn't supposed to turn off his lights. When he wakes up in the morning, he sees a giant ship that has crashed into the land, causing much catastrophe. Unable to go on, he decides to take his own life.
It was a man's birthday. He lay dead in the lounge room of his house. Next to his body was a note, written in pencil. The note read 'Happy Birthday, Friend'. The victim had a girlfriend and the police suspected her ex-boyfriend. They could find no obvious evidence. While searching the ex-boyfriend's car, the police saw an envelope with the girlfriend's address written on it. They thought they would get the handwriting checked against the note. The scientist in charge came in early to work the next day; it was 7am. He looked out his window which faced east and stared at the rising sun and it was then that he realised how to prove the ex-boyfriend killed the man, even though the girlfriend's address was not written in the same handwriting. How did he do it?
The scientist's office faced east, and the sun was coming in through the window at a very low angle. He saw some very faint shadows on the surface of the envelope. He looked closer. There were the words embossed on the paper. They read "Happy Birthday, Friend". The ex-boyfriend had forgotten that a pencil leaves an impression on paper beneath the page written on.
Alexander is stranded on an island covered in forest.
One day, when the wind is blowing from the west, lightning strikes the west end of the island and sets fire to the forest. The fire is very violent, burning everything in its path, and without intervention the fire will burn the whole island, killing the man in the process.
There are cliffs around the island, so he cannot jump off. How can the Alexander survive the fire? (There are no buckets or any other means to put out the fire)
Alexander picks up a piece of wood and lights it from the fire on the west end of the island. He then quickly carries it near the east end of he island and starts a new fire. The wind will cause that fire to burn out the eastern end and he can then shelter in the burnt area. Alexander survives the fire, but dies of starvation, with all the food in the forest burnt.
