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.
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.
A man stands on one side of a river, his dog on the other. The man calls his dog, who immediately crosses the river without getting wet and without using a bridge or a boat. How did the dog do it?
Two soldiers, William and Ethan, are assigned to guard a bridge, which connects the West and East sides of the Great Kingdom. Each soldier is ordered to stand at an end of the bridge to make sure no criminals cross.
On one side of the bridge stands William, watching over the West side of the kingdom, and making sure no shady characters try to cross the bridge.
Ethan stands on the other side of the bridge, facing the East side of the kingdom with his rifle at the ready in case any criminals try to pass across.
"Any criminals today?" William asks.
Ethan rolls his eyes. "What do you think?" he asks.
"You roll your eyes too much," William says.
How could William tell that Ethan was rolling his eyes?
William is on the east side of the bridge, facing the West side of the kingdom, while Ethan is on the west side of the bridge, facing the East side of the kingdom. So William and Ethan are facing each other, and can see each other's faces.
