You have an empty wine bottle with a cork that has been secured at the top in a normal way. There is a metal ring inside the bottle that is suspended by a string.
How can you make the metal ring drop to the bottom if you are not allowed to touch anything - not the bottle, not the cork, not the thread and not the ring?
One evening there was a murder in the home of a married couple, their son and daughter. One of these four people murdered one of the others. One of the members of the family witnessed the crime.
The other one helped the murderer.
These are the things we know for sure:
1. The witness and the one who helped the murderer were not of the same sex.
2. The oldest person and the witness were not of the same sex.
3. The youngest person and the victim were not of the same sex.
4. The one who helped the murderer was older than the victim.
5. The father was the oldest member of the family.
6. The murderer was not the youngest member of the family.
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.
