There is a box in which distinct numbered balls have been kept. You have to pick two balls randomly from the lot.
If someone is offering you a 2 to 1 odds that the numbers will be relatively prime, for example
If the balls you picked had the numbers 6 and 13, you lose $1.
If the balls you picked had the numbers 5 and 25, you win $2.
One night, a man runs away from home. He turns left and keeps running. After some time he turns left again and keeps running. Later, he turns left one more time and runs back home—but when he gets home, he finds a man in a mask. Who was the man in the mask?
There was once a troop of 5 elves. The 5 elves were very dedicated on finding the magical treasure of 1000 coins. However, being elves, they were super geniuses, very greedy and they did not hesitate in taking lives of other elves. The 5 elves were named Aye, Bee, Cee, Dee and Ee, ranked from high to low respectively, from Aye to Ee. One fine day, their efforts brought results and they found 1000 coins. Now they had to split it in between them as per their ranks. The lowest ranked elf has to make the proposal. If the proposal is accepted by majority, it is agreed, or the suggesting elf is killed.
How many people must be gathered together in a room, before you can be certain that there is a greater than 50/50 chance that at least two of them have the same birthday?
In 2011, people playing Foldit, an online puzzle game about protein folding, resolved the structure of an enzyme that causes an Aids-like disease in monkeys. Researchers had been working on the problem for 13 years. The gamers solved it in three weeks.
