Justin Case and Auntie Bellum are fellow con artists who deliver coded messages to each other to communicate. Recently Auntie Bellum was put in jail for stealing a rare and expensive diamond. Only a few days after this, Justin Case sent her a friendly letter asking her how she was. On the inside of the envelope of the letter, he hid a code. Yesterday, Auntie Bellum escaped and left the envelope and the letter inside the jail cell. The police did some research and found the code on the inside of the envelope, but they haven't been able to crack it. Could you help the police find out what the message is?
This is the code:
llwatchawtfeclocklnisksundialcirbetimersool
The message was "loose bricks in left wall." The message was put backward with words related to time in between. This is how the message looks when separated:
ll watch awtfe clock Inisk sundial cirbe timer sool
If you take out watch, clock, sundial, and timer, this is what is left:
llawtfelniskcirbesool
Look at this backwards and this is what you have:
loose bricks in left wall
Auntie Bellum took out the bricks and escaped in the night. Then, she put the bricks back where they were.
When Manish was three years old he carved a nail into his favorite tree to mark his height. Six years later at age nine, Manish returned to see how much higher the nail was. If the tree grew by five centimeters each year, how much higher would the nail be.
The nail would be at the same height since trees grow at their tops.
A monk leaves at sunrise and walks on a path from the front door of his monastery to the top of a nearby mountain. He arrives at the mountain summit exactly at sundown. The next day, he rises again at sunrise and descends down to his monastery, following the same path that he took up the mountain.
Assuming sunrise and sunset occured at the same time on each of the two days, prove that the monk must have been at some spot on the path at the same exact time on both days.
Imagine that instead of the same monk walking down the mountain on the second day, that it was actually a different monk. Let's call the monk who walked up the mountain monk A, and the monk who walked down the mountain monk B. Now pretend that instead of walking down the mountain on the second day, monk B actually walked down the mountain on the first day (the same day monk A walks up the mountain).
Monk A and monk B will walk past each other at some point on their walks. This moment when they cross paths is the time of day at which the actual monk was at the same point on both days. Because in the new scenario monk A and monk B MUST cross paths, this moment must exist.
You've been placed on a course of expensive medication in which you are to take one tablet of Plusin and one tablet of Minusin daily. You must be careful that you take just one of each because taking more of either can have serious side effects. Taking Plusin without taking Minusin, or vice versa, can also be very serious, because they must be taken together in order to be effective. In summary, you must take exactly one of the Plusin pills and one of the Minusin pills at one time.
Therefore, you open up the Plusin bottle, and you tap one Plusin pill into your hand. You put that bottle aside and you open the Minusin bottle. You do the same, but by mistake, two Minusins fall into your hand with the Plusin pill.
Now, here's the problem. You weren't watching your hand as the pills fell into it, so you can't tell the Plusin pill apart from the two Minusin pills. The pills look identical. They are both the same size, same weight (10 micrograms), same color (Blue), same shape (perfect square), same everything, and they are not marked differently in any way.
What are you going to do?
You cannot tell which pill is which, and they cost $500 a piece, so you cannot afford to throw them away and start over again. How do you get your daily dose of exactly one Plusin and exactly one Minusin without wasting any of the pills?
Carefully cut each of the three pills in half, and carefully separate them into two piles, with half of each pill in each pile. You do not know which pill is which, but you are 100% sure that each of the two piles now contains two halves of Minusin and half of Plusin. Now go back into the Plusin bottle, take out a pill, cut it in half, and add one half to each stack. Now you have two stacks, each one containing two halves of Plusin and two halves of Minusin. Take one stack of pills today, and save the second stack for tomorrow.
Betty signals to the headwaiter in a restaurant, and says, "There is a fly in my tea."
The waiter says "No problem Madam. I will bring you a fresh cup of tea."
A few minutes later Betty shouts, "Get me the manager! This is the same cup of tea."
How did she know?
Hint: The tea is still hot.
Betty had already put sugar in her tea before sending it back. When the "new" cup came, it was already tasted sweet.
At a dinner party, many of the guests exchange greetings by shaking hands with each other while they wait for the host to finish cooking.
After all this handshaking, the host, who didn't take part in or see any of the handshaking, gets everybody's attention and says: "I know for a fact that at least two people at this party shook the same number of other people's hands."
How could the host know this? Note that nobody shakes his or her own hand.
Assume there are N people at the party.
Note that the least number of people that someone could shake hands with is 0, and the most someone could shake hands with is N-1 (which would mean that they shook hands with every other person).
Now, if everyone at the party really were to have shaken hands with a different number of people, then that means somone must have shaken hands with 0 people, someone must have shaken hands with 1 person, and so on, all the way up to someone who must have shaken hands with N-1 people. This is the only possible scenario, since there are N people at the party and N different numbers of possible people to shake hands with (all the numbers between 0 and N-1 inclusive).
But this situation isn't possible, because there can't be both a person who shook hands with 0 people (call him Person 0) and a person who shook hands with N-1 people (call him Person N-1). This is because Person 0 shook hands with nobody (and thus didn't shake hands with Person N-1), but Person N-1 shook hands with everybody (and thus did shake hands with Person 0). This is clearly a contradiction, and thus two of the people at the party must have shaken hands with the same number of people.
Pretend there were only 2 guests at the party. Then try 3, and 4, and so on. This should help you think about the problem.
Search: Pigeonhole principle
After recent events, Question Mark is annoyed with his brother, Skid Mark. Skid thought it would be funny to hide Question's wallet. He told Question that he would get it back if he finds it. So, first off, Skid laid five colored keys in a row. One of them is a key to a room where Skid is hiding Question's wallet. Using the clues, can you determine the order of the keys and which is the right key?
Red: This key is somewhere to the left of the key to the door.
Blue: This key is not at one of the ends.
Green: This key is three spaces away from the key to the door (2 between).
Yellow: This key is next to the key to the door.
Orange: This key is in the middle.
The order (from left to right) is Green, Red, Orange, Blue, Yellow. The blue key is the key to the door.
On the first day they cover one quarter of the total distance.
The next day they cover one quarter of what is left.
The following day they cover two fifths of the remainder and on the fourth day half of the remaining distance.
The group now have 14 miles left, how many miles have they walked?
Using only and all the numbers 3, 3, 7, 7, along with the arithmetic operations +,-,*, and /, can you come up with a calculation that gives the number 24? No decimal points allowed.
[For example, to get the number 14, we could do 3 * (7 - (7 / 3))]
You have two jugs, one that holds exactly 3 gallons, and one that holds exactly 5 gallons. Using just these two jugs and a fire hose, how can you measure out exactly 4 gallons of water?
Fill the 5-gallon jug to the top, and then pour it into the 3-gallon jug until the 3-gallon jug is full. You now have 2 gallons remaining in the 5-gallon jug. Pour out the 3-gallon jug, and then pour the 2 gallons from the 5-gallon jug into the 3-gallon jug. Finally, fill the 5-gallon jug to the top and pour it into the 3-gallon jug until it's full. Since there was only space left for 1 more gallon in the 3-gallon jug, you now have exactly 4 gallons in the 5-gallon jug.
