There are 4 big houses in my home town. They are made from these materials: red marbles, green marbles, white marbles and blue marbles.
Mrs Jennifer's house is somewhere to the left of the green marbles one and the third one along is white marbles.
Mrs Sharon owns a red marbles house and Mr Cruz does not live at either end, but lives somewhere to the right of the blue marbles house.
Mr Danny lives in the fourth house, while the first house is not made from red marbles.
Who lives where, and what is their house made from ?
From, left to right:
#1 Mrs Jennifer - blue marbles
#2 Mrs Sharon - red marbles
#3 Mr Cruz - white marbles
#4 Mr Danny - green marbles
If we separate and label the clues, and label the houses #1, #2, #3, #4 from left to right we can see that:
a. Mrs Jennifer's house is somewhere to the left of the green marbles one.
b. The third one along is white marbles.
c. Mrs Sharon owns a red marbles house
d. Mr Cruz does not live at either end.
e. Mr Cruz lives somewhere to the right of the blue marbles house.
f. Mr Danny lives in the fourth house
g. The first house is not made from red marbles.
By (g) #1 isn't made from red marbles, and by (b) nor is #3. By (f) Mr Danny lives in #4 therefore by (c) #2 must be red marbles, and Mrs Sharon lives there.
Therefore by (d) Mr Cruz must live in #3, which, by (b) is the white marbles house. By (a) #4 must be green marbles (otherwise Mrs Jennifer couldn't be to its left) and by (f) Mr Danny lives there.
Which leaves Mrs Jennifer, living in #1, the blue marbles house.
You have twelve balls, identical in every way except that one of them weighs slightly less or more than the balls.
You have a balance scale, and are allowed to do 3 weighings to determine which ball has the different weight, and whether the ball weighs more or less than the other balls.
What process would you use to weigh the balls in order to figure out which ball weighs a different amount, and whether it weighs more or less than the other balls?
Take eight balls, and put four on one side of the scale, and four on the other.
If the scale is balanced, that means the odd ball out is in the other 4 balls.
Let's call these 4 balls O1, O2, O3, and O4.
Take O1, O2, and O3 and put them on one side of the scale, and take 3 balls from the 8 "normal" balls that you originally weighed, and put them on the other side of the scale.
If the O1, O2, and O3 balls are heavier, that means the odd ball out is among these, and is heavier. Weigh O1 and O2 against each other. If one of them is heavier than the other, this is the odd ball out, and it is heavier. Otherwise, O3 is the odd ball out, and it is heavier.
If the O1, O2, and O3 balls are lighter, that means the odd ball out is among these, and is lighter. Weigh O1 and O2 against each other. If one of them is lighter than the other, this is the odd ball out, and it is lighter. Otherwise, O3 is the odd ball out, and it is lighter.
If these two sets of 3 balls weigh the same amount, then O4 is the odd ball out. Weight it against one of the "normal" balls from the first weighing. If O4 is heavier, then it is heavier, if it's lighter, then it's lighter.
If the scale isn't balanced, then the odd ball out is among these 8 balls.
Let's call the four balls on the side of the scale that was heavier H1, H2, H3, and H4 ("H" for "maybe heavier").
Let's call the four balls on the side of the scale that was lighter L1, L2, L3, and L4 ("L" for "maybe lighter").
Let's also call each ball from the 4 in the original weighing that we know aren't the odd balls out "Normal" balls.
So now weigh [H1, H2, L1] against [H3, L2, Normal].
-If the [H1, H2, L1] side is heavier (and thus the [H3, L2, Normal] side is lighter), then this means that either H1 or H2 is the odd ball out and is heavier, or L2 is the odd ball out and is lighter.
-So measure [H1, L2] against 2 of the "Normal" balls.
-If [H1, L2] are heavier, then H1 is the odd ball out, and is heavier.
-If [H1, L2] are lighter, then L2 is the odd ball out, and is lighter.
-If the scale is balanced, then H2 is the odd ball out, and is heavier.
-If the [H1, H2, L1] side is lighter (and thus the [H3, L2, Normal] side is heavier), then this means that either L1 is the odd ball out, and is lighter, or H3 is the odd ball out, and is heavier.
-So measure L1 and H3 against two "normal" balls.
-If the [L1, H3] side is lighter, then L1 is the odd ball out, and is lighter.
-Otherwise, if the [L1, H3] side is heavier, then H3 is the odd ball out, and is heavier.
If the [H1, H2, L1] side and the [H3, L2, Normal] side weigh the same, then we know that either H4 is the odd ball out, and is heavier, or one of L3 or L4 is the odd ball out, and is lighter.
So weight [H4, L3] against two of the "Normal" balls.
If the [H4, L3] side is heavier, then H4 is the odd ball out, and is heavier.
If the [H4, L3] side is lighter, then L3 is the odd ball out, and is lighter.
If the [H4, L3] side weighs the same as the [Normal, Normal] side, then L4 is the odd ball out, and is lighter.
A man told his son that he would give him $1000 if he could accomplish the following task. The father gave his son ten envelopes and a thousand dollars, all in one dollar bills. He told his son, "Place the money in the envelopes in such a manner that no matter what number of dollars I ask for, you can give me one or more of the envelopes, containing the exact amount I asked for without having to open any of the envelopes. If you can do this, you will keep the $1000."
When the father asked for a sum of money, the son was able to give him envelopes containing the exact amount of money asked for. How did the son distribute the money among the ten envelopes?
The contents or the ten envelopes (in dollar bills) hould be as follows: $1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 489. The first nine numbers are in geometrical progression, and their sum, deducted from 1,000, gives the contents of the tenth envelope.
A man is found dead in the desert. He is wearing only his underwear. Half of a straw is found nearby.
How did this man die?
The man was flying in a hot-air balloon with another man over the desert. The balloon started to go down because of excess weight. Both men would die if they ended up stranded in the desert, so they stripped down to their underwear and threw their clothes off the balloon to try to reduce the weight. Unfortunately, that didn't work well enough. So they drew straws to decide who would jump. The dead man pulled the short straw and jumped out of the balloon.
Allan, Bertrand, and Cecil were caught stealing so the king sent them to the dungeon.
But the king decided to give them a chance.
He mad them stand in a line and put hats on their heads.
He told them that if they answer a riddle, they could go free.
Here is the riddle: "Each of you has a hat on your head. You do not know the color of the hat on your own head. If one of you can guess the color of the hat on your head, I will let you free. But before you answer you must keep standing in this line. You cannot turn around. Here are my only hints: there are only black and white hats. At least one hat is black. At least one hat is white."
Allan couldn't see any hats.
Bertrand could see Allan's hat but not his own.
Cecil could see Bertrand's hat and Allan's hat, but not his own.
After a minute nobody had solved the riddle. But then a short while later, one of them solved the riddle. Who was is and how did he know?
Bertrand knew the answer because Cecil didn't say anything after one minute. If Bertrand and Allan's hats were both the same color, then Cecil would know what color his hat was. But Cecil didn't know. So Bertrand knew that Allan's hat was a different color than his. Since Allan's hat was black, Betrand knew his hat was white.
It was a man's birthday. He lay dead in the lounge room of his house. Next to his body was a note, written in pencil. The note read 'Happy Birthday, Friend'. The victim had a girlfriend and the police suspected her ex-boyfriend. They could find no obvious evidence. While searching the ex-boyfriend's car, the police saw an envelope with the girlfriend's address written on it. They thought they would get the handwriting checked against the note. The scientist in charge came in early to work the next day; it was 7am. He looked out his window which faced east and stared at the rising sun and it was then that he realised how to prove the ex-boyfriend killed the man, even though the girlfriend's address was not written in the same handwriting. How did he do it?
The scientist's office faced east, and the sun was coming in through the window at a very low angle. He saw some very faint shadows on the surface of the envelope. He looked closer. There were the words embossed on the paper. They read "Happy Birthday, Friend". The ex-boyfriend had forgotten that a pencil leaves an impression on paper beneath the page written on.
There were two women, standing and facing the opposite ways. The first lady was facing south and the second lady was facing north. But, they could see each other. How is that possible?
