You are in a room that has three switches and a closed door. The switches control three light bulbs on the other side of the door. Once you open the door, you may never touch the switches again. How can you definitively tell which switch is connected to each of the light bulbs?
A pregnant woman is preparing to name her seventh child. Her children's names so far are Dominique, Regis, Michelle, Fawn, Sophie, and Lara. What will she name her next child -- Jessica, Katie, Abby or Tilly?
There were five men at church, and it started raining while they were outside. The four that ran still got wet, but the one that was still stayed completely dry. Why did he stay dry?
A man escapes from jail using help from his girlfriend. The investigators suspect four girls of being the man's girlfriend.
Out of those four girls, one is his girlfriend who is lying. Two of the girls are completely innocent and are speaking the truth. One of the girls is the man's sister who is helping the girlfriend lie. Following are the statements from all four of them:
Ariana: "Myrna is his girlfriend."
Jane: "Angelina is lying."
Angelina: "Ariana is lying."
Myrna: "Jane is not his sister."
Can you find out who is the man's sister among them?
If a shopkeeper can only place the weights on one side of the common balance. For example, if he has weights 1 and 3 then he can measure 1, 3 and 4 only. Now the question is how many minimum weights and names of the weights you will need to measure all weights from 1 to 1000? This is a fairly simple problem and very easy to prove also.
You have two strings whose only known property is that when you light one end of either string it takes exactly one hour to burn. The rate at which the strings will burn is completely random and each string is different.
An infinite number of mathematicians are standing behind a bar. The first asks the barman for half a pint of beer, the second for a quarter pint, the third an eighth, and so on. How many pints of beer will the barman need to fulfill all mathematicians' wishes?
The day before the 1996 U.S. presidential election, the NYT Crossword contained the clue “Lead story in tomorrow’s newspaper,” the puzzle was built so that both electoral outcomes were correct answers, requiring 7 other clues to have dual responses.