When Jack was six years old he hammered a nail into his favourite tree to mark his height. Ten years later at age sixteen, Jack returned to see how much higher the nail was. If the tree grew by five centimetres each year, how much higher would the nail be?
I am the black child of a white father, a wingless bird, flying even to the clouds of heaven. I give birth to tears of mourning in pupils that meet me, even though there is no cause for grief, and at once on my birth, I am dissolved into air. What am I?
In one of the popular batman series movie "Batman Forever", there was a riddle that goes like "Tear me off and then scratch my head and I was red then and now I am back. Who am I?
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?
You have a basket containing ten apples. You have ten friends, who each desire an apple. You give each of your friends one apple.
Now all your friends have one apple each, yet there is an apple remaining in the basket.
How?
There is a river to cross using a river raft and there are eight people (father, mother, policeman, thief, 2 daughters and 2 sons). No one knows to operate the raft except the adults and also excluding the thief. Only two people can go in the raft at a time. The raft should keep coming back and forth in order to pick and drop the people.
Rules to be followed:
Father: the father cannot stay in the raft or outside the raft without the presence of the mother.
Mother: the mother cannot stay in the raft or outside the rat without the presence of the father.
Thief: the thief is not allowed to stay with any of the family members unless there is a policeman.
Policeman: the policeman can travel with anyone.
2 sons and 2 daughters: they are not allowed to travel in the raft without the presence of an adult. They cannot either travel in the presence of only thieves without the policeman. The sons cannot be with their mothers without their father's supervision. The daughters are not allowed to be there with their fathers without the supervision of their mothers. But the daughters and the sons can be left unsupervised (as long as the other rules are applied).
What is the sequence that the people should follow in order to cross the river through the raft keeping in mind all the rules?
The rules are applicable not only in the raft but also outside the raft.
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.
