A man hijacks an aeroplane transporting both passengers(8 of them) and valuable cargo. After taking the cargo, the man demands nine parachutes, puts one of them on, and jumps, leaving the other eight behind. Why did he want eight?
John and Jacob are playing bets. John gives $10 to Jacob and Jacob deals four cards out of a normal 52-card deck which are chosen by him completely randomly. Jacob keeps them facing down takes the first card and shows it to John. John has a choice of either keeping it or looking at the second card. When the second card is shown to him, he again has the choice of keeping or looking at the third which is followed by the third card as well; only if he does not want the third card, he will have to keep the fourth card.
If the card that John is choosing is n, Jacob will give it to him. Then the cards will be shuffled and the game will be played repeatedly. Now you might think that it all depends on chance, but John has come up with a strategy that will help him turn the favor in his odds.
A swan sits at the center of a perfectly circular lake. At an edge of the lake stands a ravenous monster waiting to devour the swan. The monster can not enter the water, but it will run around the circumference of the lake to try to catch the swan as soon as it reaches the shore. The monster moves at 4 times the speed of the swan, and it will always move in the direction along the shore that brings it closer to the swan the quickest. Both the swan and the the monster can change directions in an instant.
The swan knows that if it can reach the lake's shore without the monster right on top of it, it can instantly escape into the surrounding forest.
A few friends are enjoying their sea voyage in a boat full of apples. On the way, they felt hungry and thus decided to eat the apples. Together, they ate two dozen of apples. When they have eaten the apples, will there be any change in the water level?
Its something that each of us devours,
Not just us but birds, beats, trees, and flowers,
Frets iron and nibbles steel,
Toil hard stones to meal,
Exterminates king, collapse town,
And blows the mountains down.
I ask Joseph to pick any 5 cards out of a deck with no Jokers.
He can inspect then shuffle the deck before picking any five cards. He picks out 5 cards then hands them to me (Jack can't see any of this). I look at the cards and I pick 1 card out and give it back to Joseph. I then arrange the other four cards in a special way, and give those 4 cards all face down, and in a neat pile, to Jack.
Jack looks at the 4 cards i gave him, and says out loud which card Joseph is holding (suit and number). How?
The solution uses pure logic, not sleight of hand. All Jack needs to know is the order of the cards and what is on their face, nothing more.
In the Wild West, you are challenged into a death match by two bounty hunters nicknamed Golden Revolver (GR) and Killer Boots (KB). You accept the challenge. None of you want to waste any of the bullet and so a certain rules are laid down:
1) All of you will shoot in a given order till the last man standing.
2) Each of you shoots only once upon his turn.
3) If any one of you is injured, the other two will finish him off with an iron rod.
4) The worst shooter of all (which is you) shoots first and the best one shoots at the last.
Now, how will you plan things if you know that you hit every third shot of yours, KB hits every second shot and GR hits every shot ?