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 ?
Three men in a cafe order a meal the total cost of which is $15. They each contribute $5. The waiter takes the money to the chef who recognises the three as friends and asks the waiter to return $5 to the men.
The waiter is not only poor at mathematics but dishonest and instead of going to the trouble of splitting the $5 between the three he simply gives them $1 each and pockets the remaining $2 for himself.
Now, each of the men effectively paid $4, the total paid is therefore $12. Add the $2 in the waiters pocket and this comes to $14. Where has the other $1 gone from the original $15?
Take number 1000 and then add 20 to it.
Now add 1000 one more time.
Now add 30.
Now add 1000 one more time.
Now add 40.
Now add 1000 one more time.
Now add 10.
What is the four-digit number in which the first digit is one-third the second, the third is the sum of the first two, and the last is three times the second?
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.
