You're standing in front of a room with one lightbulb inside of it. You cannot see if it is on or off. Outside the room, there are 3 switches in the off positions. You may turn the switches any way you want to. You stop turning the switches, enter the room and know which switch controls the lightbulb. How?
You turn 2 switches "on" and leave 1 switch "off" and wait about a minute. Then enter the room, but just before you enter, turn one switch from "on" to "off". Once in the room, feel the lightbulb - if it is warm, but off, it has to be the last switch you turned off. If it is on, it has to be the switch left on. If it is cold and is off, it has to be the switch you left in the off position.
Swaff was traveling in an elevator, being cool, when he suddenly heard the cord supporting the elevator snap. Being the cool guy that he is, he knew of a myth where if you could jump at the right time, you could possibly be able to survive a plunge in an elevator.
Now, when Swaff was a boy, he spent all of his math classes making fun of his female teacher's moustache. He never paid attention, so he was a tad bit slow in his mathematical calculations. He did, however, have a very bizarre talent, in which he could tell the exact speed he was traveling. That came in pretty lucky today.
Swaff knew he was falling at an even rate of 50 miles per hour. When the cord snapped, he was exactly 110 feet above the ground. He knew that he must jump at the right time to have any hopes of surviving.
Now, after doing the math, please tell me when Swaff jumped.
He never did. By the time Swaff figured out that he would have to jump in 1.5 seconds, he would already be dead. Not even the best of mathematicians could do all the math needed in 1 and half seconds. Swaff fell to his death.
