Riddle #1078

Can a man legally marry his widow's sister in the state of California?

Hussey has been caught stealing goats, and is brought into court for justice. The judge is his ex-wife Amy Hussey, who wants to show him some sympathy, but the law clearly calls for two shots to be taken at Hussey from close range. To make things a little better for Hussey, Amy Hussey tells him she will place two bullets into a six-chambered revolver in successive order. She will spin the chamber, close it, and take one shot. If Hussey is still alive, she will then either take another shot, or spin the chamber again before shooting. Hussey is a bit incredulous that his own ex-wife would carry out the punishment, and a bit sad that she was always such a rule follower. He steels himself as Amy Hussey loads the chambers, spins the revolver, and pulls the trigger. Whew! It was blank. Then Amy Hussey asks, 'Do you want me to pull the trigger again, or should I spin the chamber a second time before pulling the trigger?' What should Hussey choose?

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?

Your friend shows you two jars, one with 100 red marbles in it, the other with 100 blue marbles in it. He proposes a game. He'll put the two jars behind his back and tell you to pick one of them at random. You'll then close your eyes, he'll hand you the jar you picked, and you'll pick a random marble from that jar. You win if the marble you pick is blue, and you lose otherwise. To give you the best shot at winning, your friend gives you the two jars before the game starts and says you can move the marbles around however you'd like, as long as all 200 marbles are in the 2 jars (that is, you can't throw any marbles away). How should you move the marbles around to give yourself the best chance of picking a blue marble?

Imagine you're in a room that is filling with water. There are no windows or doors. How do you get out?

Why did Mickey Mouse go to Outer Space?

You are on a gameshow and the host shows you three doors. Behind one door is a suitcase with $1 million in it, and behind the other two doors are sacks of coal. The host tells you to choose a door, and that the prize behind that door will be yours to keep. You point to one of the three doors. The host says, "Before we open the door you pointed to, I am going to open one of the other doors." He points to one of the other doors, and it swings open, revealing a sack of coal behind it. "Now I will give you a choice," the host tells you. "You can either stick with the door you originally chose, or you can choose to switch to the other unopened door." Should you switch doors, stick with your original choice, or does it not matter?

In a supermarket, the first 25 customers of the day purchased an average of two items each. After a further 15 customers, the average number of items purchased by each customer rose to eight. What was the average number of items purchased by the last 15 customers only?

You see a boat filled with people. It has not sunk, but when you look again you don't see a single person on the boat. Why?

A man puts on a clean shirt every night before bed. On the first nigh he puts on a blue shirt. He than sleeps for 5 hours. Every one hour more he sleeps than the night before he put on a different color shirt the next night according to this scale: blue, black, red, green, white, pink, orange, brown, purple, yellow, grey, neon green, tan, and teal. Every one hour less he sleeps than the last night he put on a different color shirt the next night going backwards on his scale. If he were to wear a blue shirt because he slept more hours than the last night he does. If it was because he slept less hours than the night before he skips it and wears a teal shirt instead. If he goes backwards on the scale and goes to blue but would not wear a blue shirt he still counts blue in his going backwards on his scale. The second night the man wears a blue shirt because he did not sleep any more or less hours than the last night. The man sleeps for six hours that night. The next night he sleeps for five hours. Night number four he sleeps for eight hours. The next night he sleeps for seven hours. The next night he sleeps so well he sleeps for 11 hours. Night number seven he stays up so late he only sleeps for four hours. The next night he is so tired he sleeps for eight hours. The next night he sleeps for eight hours again. Night number ten he sleeps for 14 hours because he is sick. Since he slept so long the last night he only sleeps for seven hours. The next night he is a little bit tired so he sleeps for eight hours. The night after that he had to do so much work he only slept five hours. The next night at work they let him out early and he slept for nine hours. The next night he slept for eight hours. And the last night the man did he slept for ten hours. The next night he put on a different color shirt according to his scale, but the next night he randomly picked a shirt. At what night will the man wear a blue shirt again?

There was once a college that offered a class on probability applied to the real world. The class was relatively easy, but there was a catch. There were no homework assignments or tests, but there was a final exam that would have only one question on it. When everyone received the test it was a blank sheet of paper with a solitary question on it: "What is risk?" Most students were able to pass, but only one student received 100% for the class! Even stranger was that he only wrote down one word! What did he write?