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.
You have three orange, two pink and five purple balls in the drawer beside your bed. There is no electricity and the room is entirely dark. How many balls must you take out to ensure at least one ball of each colour at least?
If two fifty-foot ropes are suspended from a forty-foot ceiling that is twenty feet apart, how much rope will you be able to steal if you have a knife?
I have thought of a number that is made up by using all the ten digits just once. Here are a few clues for you to guess my number:
First digits is divisible by 1.
First two digits are divisible by 2.
First three digits are divisible by 3.
First four digits are divisible by 4.
First five digits are divisible by 5.
First six digits are divisible by 6.
First seven digits are divisible by 7.
First eight digits are divisible by 8.
First nine digits are divisible by 9.
The number is divisible by 10.
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.
