You are standing before two doors. One of the path leads to heaven and the other one leads to hell. There are two guardians, one by each door. You know one of them always tells the truth and the other always lies, but you don’t know who is the honest one and who is the liar. You can only ask one question to one of them in order to find the way to heaven. What is the question?
The question you should ask is "If I ask the other guard about which side leads to heaven, what would he answer?"
It should be fairly easy to see that irrespective of whom do you ask this question, you will always get an answer which leads to hell. So you can chose the other path to continue your journey to heaven.
This idea was famously used in the 1986 film Labyrinth.
Here is the explanation if it is yet not clear.
Let us assume that the left door leads to heaven.
If you ask the guard which speaks truth about which path leads to heaven, as he speaks always the truth, he would say "left". Now that the liar , when he is asked what "the other guard (truth teller) " would answer, he would definitely say "right".
Similarly, if you ask the liar about which path leads to heaven, he would say "right". As the truth teller speaks nothing but the truth, he would say "right" when he is asked what "the other guard( liar ) " would answer. So in any case, you would end up having the path to hell as an answer. So you can chose the other path as a way to heaven.
A farmer is travelling with a fox, a sheep and a small sack of hay. He comes to a river with a small boat in it. The boat can only support the farmer and one other animal/item. If the farmer leaves the fox alone with the sheep, the fox will eat the sheep. And if the farmer leaves the sheep alone with the hay, the sheep will eat the hay.
How can the farmer get all three as well as himself safely across the river?
The farmer takes the sheep across the river, then returns back.
The farmer takes the fox across the river.
The farmer takes the sheep back to the first side of the river.
The farmer leaves the sheep back on the first side of the river, and takes the hay to the other side.
The farmer returns to the first side of the river.
The farmer brings the sheep back to the second side.
A man murders his wife with a knife in their car. Nobody is around to see this. He throws her out of the car being careful not to leave any fingerprints on her body. Next he throws the knife off of a cliff into a gorge where it will never be found and he goes home. An hour later the police call him and tell him that his wife has been murdered and he needs to come to the scene of the crime immediately. As soon as he arrives, he is arrested.
He never ask the cop where the scene of the crime was so they knew that he had murdered his wife.
Bill and Stacie are delighted when their new baby, Patrick, is born on February 29th, 2008. They think it's good luck to for him to be born on the special day of the leap year. But then they start thinking about when to celebrate his next birthday. After some thought, they decide that they want to celebrate Patrick's next birthday (when he turns 1) exactly 365 days after he was born, just like most people do.
What will be the date of this birthday?
The date of the birthday will be February 28th, 2009.
At first it might seem like his birthday should be March 1st, 2009, since February 29th is the day after February 28th in the leap year, while March 1st is the day after February 28th in non-leap years. But this is the wrong way to think about it.
The right way to think about it is that 365 days after the day before March 1st is always February 28th, regardless of whether it's a leap year or not. So Patrick's birthday will be February 28th.
