Your enemy challenges you to play Russian Roulette with a 6-cylinder pistol (meaning it has room for 6 bullets). He puts 2 bullets into the gun in consecutive slots, and leaves the next four slots blank. He spins the barrel and hands you the gun. You point the gun at yourself and pull the trigger. It doesn't go off. Your enemy tells you that you need to pull the trigger one more time, and that you can choose to either spin the barrel at random, or not, before pulling the trigger again. Spinning the barrel will position the barrel in a random position.
Assuming you'd like to live, should you spin the barrel or not before pulling the trigger again?
You are better off shooting again without spinning the barrel.
Given that the gun didn't fire the first time, it was pointing to one of the four empty slots. Because your enemy spun the cylinder randomly, it would have been pointing to any of these empty slots with equal probability. Three of these slots would not fire again after an additional trigger-pull, and one of them would. Thus, by not spinning the barrel, there is a 1/4 chance that pulling the trigger again would fire the gun.
Alternatively, if you spin the barrel, it will point to each of the 6 slots with equal probability. Because 2 of these 6 slots have bullets in them, there would be a 2/6 = 1/3 chance that the gun would fire after spinning the barrel.
Thus, you are better off not spinning the barrel.
Find a short hidden message in the list of words below.
carrot fiasco nephew spring rabbit
sonata tailor bureau legacy corona
travel bikini object happen soften
picnic option waited effigy adverb
report accuse animal shriek esteem
oyster
Starting with the first two words, take the first and last letters, reading from left to right. Example: Carrot fiascO "from these pairs" the message is as follows:
CONGRATULATIONS CODE BREAKER
A deliveryman comes to a house to drop off a package. He asks the woman who lives there how many children she has.
"Three," she says. "And I bet you can't guess their ages."
"Ok, give me a hint," the deliveryman says.
"Well, if you multiply their ages together, you get 36," she says. "And if you add their ages together, the sum is equal to our house number."
The deliveryman looks at the house number nailed to the front of her house. "I need another hint," he says.
The woman thinks for a moment. "My youngest son will have a lot to learn from his older brothers," she says.
The deliveryman's eyes light up and he tells her the ages of her three children. What are their ages?
Their ages are 1, 6, and 6. We can figure this out as follows:
Given that their ages multiply out to 36, the possible ages for the children are:
1, 1, 36 (sum = 38)
1, 2, 18 (sum = 21)
1, 3, 12 (sum = 16)
1, 4, 9 (sum = 14)
1, 6, 6 (sum = 13)
2, 2, 9 (sum = 13)
2, 3, 6 (sum = 11)
3, 3, 4 (sum = 10)
When the woman tells the deliveryman that the children's ages add up to her street number, he still doesn't know their ages. The only way this could happen is that there is more than one possible way for the children's ages to add up to the number on the house (or else he would have known their ages when he looked at the house number). Looking back at the possible values for the children's ages, you can see that there is only one situation in which there are multiple possible values for the children's ages that add up to the same sum, and that is if their ages are either 1, 6, and 6 (sums up to 13), or 2, 2, and 9 (also sums up to 13). So these are now the only possible values for their ages.
When the woman then tells him that her youngest son has two older brothers (who we can tell are clearly a number of years older), the only possible situation is that their ages are 1, 6, and 6.
Romeo and Juliet are found dead in a small puddle of water, surrounded by broken glass. The apartment building they are found in is located next to the city's main train station. How did they die?
Romeo and Juliet are fish. A passing train rattled the shelf their tank was sitting on and knocked it off of the shelf. The tank broke and the fish died from being out of the water.
A wealthy man lives alone in a small cottage. Being partially handicapped, he had everything delivered to his cottage. The mailman was delivering a letter one Thursday when he noticed that the front door was ajar. Through the opening he could see the man's body lying in a pool of dried blood. When a police officer arrived he surveyed the scene. On the porch were two bottles of warm milk, Monday's newspaper, a catalog, flyers, and unopened mail. The police officer suspects it was foul play. Who does he suspect and why?
The police officer suspects the newspaper delivery person. The absence of Tuesday's and Wednesday's newspaper indicates that the delivery person knew there was no one there to read it.
Sally and her younger brother were fighting. Their mother was tired of the fighting, and decided to punish them by making them stand on the same piece of newspaper in such a way that they couldn't touch each other. How did she accomplish this?
Sally's mother slid a newspaper under a door and made Sally stand on one side of the door and her brother on the other.
A man was shot to death while in his car. There were no powder marks on his clothing which indicated that the gunman was outside the car. However, all the windows were up and the doors locked. After a close inspection was made, the only bullet holes discovered were on the man's body. How was he murdered?
There are 5 ships in a port.
The Greek ship leaves at six and carries coffee.
The ship in the middle has a black chimney.
The English ship leaves at nine.
The French ship with a blue chimney is to the left of a ship that carries coffee.
To the right of the ship carrying cocoa is a ship going to Marseille.
The Brazilian ship is heading for Manila.
Next to the ship carrying rice is a ship with a green chimney.
A ship going to Genoa leaves at five.
The Spanish ship leaves at seven and is to the right of the ship going to Marseille.
The ship with a red chimney goes to Hamburg.
Next to the ship leaving at seven is a ship with a white chimney.
The ship on the border carries corn.
The ship with a black chimney leaves at eight.
The ship carrying corn is anchored next to the ship carrying rice.
The ship to Hamburg leaves at six.
Which ship goes to Port Said? Which ship carries tea?
You have two sand hourglasses, one that measures exactly 4 minutes and one that measures exactly 7 minutes. You need to measure out exactly 2 minutes to boil an egg. Using only these two hourglasses, how can you measure out exactly 2 minutes to boil your egg?
Flip over both hourglasses at the same time.
1. After 4 minutes, the 4-minute hourglass will be done, and there will be 3 minutes left in the 7-minute hourglass. Immediately flip the 4-minute hourglass over again.
2. After 3 more minutes, the 7-minute hourglass will be done, and there will be exactly 1 minute left in the 4-minute hourglass. Immediately flip the 7-minute hourglass over again.
3. After 1 more minute, the 4-minute hourglass will be done again, and there will be exactly 6 minutes left in the 7-minute hourglass. Immediately flip over the 4-minute hourglass.
4. After 4 more minutes, the 4-minute hourglass will be done again, and there will be exactly 2 minutes left in the 7-minute hourglass. At this point, put your egg in the boiling water. When the 7-minute hourglass is done, it will have been exactly 2 more minutes, and your egg will have boiled just right.
Or after step 2 just flip 7-minute hourglass for second minute.
I have billions of eyes, yet i live in darkness. I have millions of ears, yet only four lobes. I have no muscle, yet i rule two hemispheres. What am I?
I am the human brain. The brain has billions of optic and auditory nerves, four lobes and two hemispheres, and is an organ of the human body.
