In a guessing game, five friends had to guess the exact numbers of apples in a covered basket.
Friends guessed 22, 24, 29, 33, and 38, but none of the guesses was correct. The guesses were off by 1, 8, 6, 3, and 8 (in random order).
Can you determine the number of apples in a basket from this information?
In a contest, four fruits (an apple, a banana, an orange, and a pear) have been placed in four closed boxes (one fruit per box). People may guess which fruit is in which box. 123 people participate in the contest. When the boxes are opened, it turns out that 43 people have guessed none of the fruits correctly, 39 people have guessed one fruit correctly, and 31 people have guessed two fruits correctly.
How many people have guessed three fruits correctly, and how many people have guessed four fruits correctly
I ask Joseph to pick any 5 cards out of a deck with no Jokers.
He can inspect then shuffle the deck before picking any five cards. He picks out 5 cards then hands them to me (Jack can't see any of this). I look at the cards and I pick 1 card out and give it back to Joseph. I then arrange the other four cards in a special way, and give those 4 cards all face down, and in a neat pile, to Jack.
Jack looks at the 4 cards i gave him, and says out loud which card Joseph is holding (suit and number). How?
The solution uses pure logic, not sleight of hand. All Jack needs to know is the order of the cards and what is on their face, nothing more.
A man is surviving on an island along with his friend. They have been starving for four days for food. Suddenly, they find a fisherman. The friend goes with the fisherman in order to catch the fish (if they can find any).
The fisherman returns after some time but he is alone and has some salmon that he had prepared. When asked, the fisherman tells him that his best friend fell off the boat and drowned in the water. Starving for so long, he eats the meal while crying for his friend.
After being rescued, he goes to a diner and orders salmon. When he eats his meal, he jumps and commits suicide. Why did he do it?
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.
