Best riddles

The players were musician.

Alley cats.

Only 23 people need to be in the room. Our first observation in solving this problem is the following: (the probability that at least 2 people have the same birthday + the probability that nobody has the same birthday) = 1.0 What this means is that there is a 100% chance that EITHER everybody in the room has a different birthday, OR at least two people in the room have the same birthday (and these probabilities don't add up to more than 1.0 because they cover mutually exclusive situations). With some simple re-arranging of the formula, we get: the probability that at least 2 people have the same birthday = (1.0 - the probability that nobody has the same birthday) So now if we can find the probability that nobody in the room has the same birthday, we just subtract this value from 1.0 and we'll have our answer. The probability that nobody in the room has the same birthday is fairly straightforward to calculate. We can think of this as a "selection without replacement" problem, where each person "selects" a birthday at random, and we then have to figure out the probability that no two people select the same birthday. The first selection has a 365/365 chance of being different than the other birthdays (since none have been selected yet). The next selection has a 364/365 chance of being different than the 1 birthday that has been selected so far. The next selection has a 363/365 chance of being different than the 2 birthdays that have been selected so far. These probabilities are multiplied together since each is conditional on the previous. So for example, the probability that nobody in a room of 3 people have the same birthday is (365/365 * 364/365 * 363/365) =~ 0.9918 More generally, if there are n people in a room, then the probability that nobody has the same birthday is (365/365 * 364/365 * ... * (365-n+2)/365 * (365-n+1)/365) We can plug in values for n. For n=22, we get that the probability that nobody has the same birthday is 0.524, and thus the probabilty that at least two people have the same birthday is (1.0 - 0.524) = 0.476 = 47.6%. Then for n=23, we get that the probability that nobody has the same birthday is 0.493, and thus the probabilty that at least two people have the same birthday is 1.0 - 0.493) = 0.507 = 50.7%. Thus, once we get to 23 people we have reached the 50% threshold.

First of all, the brute-force approach does not work. If the Camel starts by picking up the 1000 bananas and try to reach point B, then he will eat up all the 1000 bananas on the way and there will be no bananas left for him to return to point A. So we have to take an approach that the Camel drops the bananas in between and then returns to point A to pick up bananas again. Since there are 3000 bananas and the Camel can only carry 1000 bananas, he will have to make 3 trips to carry them all to any point in between. When bananas are reduced to 2000 then the Camel can shift them to another point in 2 trips and when the number of bananas left are <= 1000, then he should not return and only move forward. In the first part, P1, to shift the bananas by 1Km, the Camel will have to Move forward with 1000 bananas – Will eat up 1 banana in the way forward Leave 998 banana after 1 km and return with 1 banana – will eat up 1 banana in the way back Pick up the next 1000 bananas and move forward – Will eat up 1 banana in the way forward Leave 998 banana after 1 km and return with 1 banana – will eat up 1 banana in the way back Will carry the last 1000 bananas from point a and move forward – will eat up 1 banana Note: After point 5 the Camel does not need to return to point A again. So to shift 3000 bananas by 1km, the Camel will eat up 5 bananas. After moving to 200 km the Camel would have eaten up 1000 bananas and is now left with 2000 bananas. Now in the Part P2, the Camel needs to do the following to shift the Bananas by 1km. Move forward with 1000 bananas – Will eat up 1 banana in the way forward Leave 998 banana after 1 km and return with 1 banana – will eat up this 1 banana in the way back Pick up the next 1000 bananas and move forward – Will eat up 1 banana in the way forward Note: After point 3 the Camel does not need to return to the starting point of P2. So to shift 2000 bananas by 1km, the Camel will eat up 3 bananas. After moving to 333 km the camel would have eaten up 1000 bananas and is now left with the last 1000 bananas. The Camel will actually be able to cover 333.33 km, I have ignored the decimal part because it will not make a difference in this example. Hence the length of part P2 is 333 Km. Now, for the last part, P3, the Camel only has to move forward. He has already covered 533 (200+333) out of 1000 km in Parts P1 & P2. Now he has to cover only 467 km and he has 1000 bananas. He will eat up 467 bananas on the way forward, and at point B the Camel will be left with only 533 Bananas.

Turn on the first switch and wait for a while. Turn off the first one and turn on the second. Go into the room. One bulb is shining, the second bulb is hot and the third one nothing.

99 / .99

He was driving the truck during daytime.

The girl is locked in the cellar. Her parents are both crazed people who thought the best way to protect their daughter would be by locking her in the cellar since she was born. On the other side of the door is the rest of the house, and the outside world.

A milkshake.

None. The sum of numbers from 0-9(0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) is 45 and therefore can be divisible by 3 and 9.