Christina makes tasty toast in a small pan. After toasting one side of a slice, she turns it over. Each side takes 30 seconds. The pan can only hold two slices.
How can she toast both sides of three slices in 1 & 1/2 instead of 2 minutes?
You are camping with your friends. You have a flashlight for any emergency and have brought 8 batteries along with you. Your brother calls to tell you that four of those batteries are already dead.
Your flashlight requires two working batteries to run. What is the least number of pairs you will need to test to guarantee that you can get the flashlight on?
A woman named Maria was at the funeral of her mother. She met a nice young man that she had never seen before and after the service, they spent a bit of time together. Then she got busy and didn’t get his name or phone number before he left. She tried to find him, but no one knew who he was or how to contact him. A few weeks later, Maria’s older sister dies and the police suspect murder. Who killed the sister?
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.
