A man has a barrel filled with oil that weighs 100 pounds, and then he puts something into it. Now the barrel weighs less than 100 pounds. What did he put in the barrel?
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?
100 prisoners are stuck in the prison in solitary cells. The warden of the prison got bored one day and offered them a challenge. He will put one prisoner per day, selected at random (a prisoner can be selected more than once), into a special room with a light bulb and a switch which controls the bulb. No other prisoners can see or control the light bulb. The prisoner in the special room can either turn on the bulb, turn off the bulb or do nothing. On any day, the prisoners can stop this process and say "Every prisoner has been in the special room at least once". If that happens to be true, all the prisoners will be set free. If it is false, then all the prisoners will be executed. The prisoners are given some time to discuss and figure out a solution. How do they ensure they all go free?
Four cars come to a four-way stop, each coming from a different direction. They can’t decide who got there first, so they all go forward at the same time. All 4 cars go, but none crash into each other. How is this possible?
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.