Once upon a time there was a dad and 3 kids. When the kids were adults, the dad was old and Death came to take the dad. The first son, who became a lawyer, begged Death to let the dad live a few more years. Death agreed. When Death came back, the second son, who became a doctor begged Death to let his father live a few more days. Death agreed. When Death came back the third son, who became a priest begged Death to let the dad live till that candle wick burned out and he pointed to a candle. Death agreed. The third son knew Death wouldn't come back, and he didn't. Why not?
The third son went over and blew out the candle after Death left because the son said "till the candle wick burns out", not "till the candle burns out".
A horse is tied to a fifteen-foot rope and there is a bale of hay 25 feet away from him. The horse however is still able to eat from the hay. How is this possible?
Only one color, but not one size.
Stuck at the bottom, yet I easily fly.
Present in sun, but not in rain.
Doing no harm, and feeling no pain.
What Am I?
There are n coins in a line. (Assume n is even). Two players take turns to take a coin from one of the ends of the line until there are no more coins left. The player with the larger amount of money wins.
Would you rather go first or second? Does it matter?
Assume that you go first, describe an algorithm to compute the maximum amount of money you can win.
Note that the strategy to pick maximum of two corners may not work. In the following example, first player looses the game when he/she uses strategy to pick maximum of two corners.
Example 18 20 15 30 10 14
First Player picks 18, now row of coins is
20 15 30 10 14
Second player picks 20, now row of coins is
15 30 10 14
First Player picks 15, now row of coins is
30 10 14
Second player picks 30, now row of coins is
10 14
First Player picks 14, now row of coins is
10
Second player picks 10, game over.
The total value collected by second player is more (20 + 30 + 10) compared to first player (18 + 15 + 14). So the second player wins.
Going first will guarantee that you will not lose. By following the strategy below, you will always win the game (or get a possible tie).
(1) Count the sum of all coins that are odd-numbered. (Call this X)
(2) Count the sum of all coins that are even-numbered. (Call this Y)
(3) If X > Y, take the left-most coin first. Choose all odd-numbered coins in subsequent moves.
(4) If X < Y, take the right-most coin first. Choose all even-numbered coins in subsequent moves.
(5) If X == Y, you will guarantee to get a tie if you stick with taking only even-numbered/odd-numbered coins.
You might be wondering how you can always choose odd-numbered/even-numbered coins. Let me illustrate this using an example where you have 6 coins:
Example
18 20 15 30 10 14
Sum of odd coins = 18 + 15 + 10 = 43
Sum of even coins = 20 + 30 + 14 = 64.
Since the sum of even coins is more, the first player decides to collect all even coins. He first picks 14, now the other player can only pick a coin (10 or 18). Whichever is picked the other player, the first player again gets an opportunity to pick an even coin and block all even coins.
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.
One day a scholar came to the court of Emperor Akbar and challenged Birbal to answer his questions and thus prove that he was as clever as people said he was.
He asked Birbal: "Would you prefer to answer a hundred easy questions or just a single difficult one?"
Both the emperor and Birbal had had a difficult day and were impatient to leave.
"Ask me one difficult question," said Birbal.
"Well, then tell me," said the man, "which came first into the world, the chicken or the egg?"
"The chicken," replied Birbal, very confidently.
"How do you know?" asked the scholar, a note of triumph in his voice.
What did Birbal answer to this?
Birbal told the scholar, "We had agreed you would ask only one question and you have already asked it" and he and the emperor walked away leaving the scholar gaping.
A man named Stewart is traveling all over the world. First he travels to Cape Town in South Africa. Then to Jakarta in Indonesia. Then to Canberra in Australia. Then to Rome in Italy. Then to Panama City in Panama. Where does he travel next?
Santiago in Chile. He travels to each continent in alphabetical order then to the capital of the country that has the most southern latitude.
Mr. Jason was walking along the sea shore. Suddenly it started drizzling and turned into a heavy rain. He wasn’t carrying any umbrella, not even any cap. He was completely wet and all his clothes were soaked in rain. Yet not even a single strand of his hair was wet! How was that possible?
I know a number which when multiplied by multiple of 9 i.e 9 18 27 36 45 ... The output consist of number containing only one digit.
Can you identify the number?
A man who lives in Middletown has two girlfriends, one in Northtown and one in Southtown. Trains from the Middletown train station leave for Northtown once every hour. Separate trains from the station also leave for Southtown once every hour. No trains go to both Northtown and Southtown.
Each day he gets to the Middletown train station at a completely random time and gets onto the first train that is going to either Northtown or Southtown, whichever comes first.
After a few months, he realizes that he spends 80% of his days with his girlfriend from Northtown, and only 20% of his days with his girlfriend from Southtown.
How could this be?
The train to Northtown leaves every hour, on the hour (9:00AM, 10:00AM, etc...).
The train to Southtown leaves at 12 after the hour (9:12AM, 10:12AM, etc...).
So there is only a 12/60 (1/5) chance that he will end up on the train to Southtown each day, since he will usually get to the station during the 48 minutes of each hour when the train to Northtown will be the next to come.
