Two friends were stuck in a cottage. They had nothing to do and thus they started playing cards. Suddenly the power went off and Friend 1 inverted the position of 15 cards in the normal deck of 52 cards and shuffled it. Now he asked Friend 2 to divide the cards into two piles (need not be equal) with equal number of cards facing up. The room was quite dark and Friend 2 could not see the cards. He thinks for a while and then divides the cards in two piles.
On checking, the count of cards facing up is same in both the piles. How could Friend 2 have done it ?
A famous swimmer can swim downstream in a lake in exactly 40 minutes with the lake current.
He can swim upstream in that lake in exactly 60 minutes against the lake current.
The length of the lake is 2 km.
How long he can cover the distance of one side at a still lake with no current?
A mathematician couple was having a Frappuccino in Starbucks sitting opposite to each other. Suddenly the guy noticed the text written on the paper in front of them and exclaimed that it was wrong. The girl denied it and said it is appropriate. Both are correct. What is written on the paper?
A king sentenced a man to the death sentence for some crime he had committed. Known for his kindness, the king told the culprit that he had a choice to die in a way he decides.
The culprit was clever and said something that saved him from death. What method do you think he must have chosen for his death?
There is a straight highway. Four different villages lie on that highway. The distance between them is different. The third village is 60km away from the first village; the fourth is 40 km away from the second; the third is 10 km near to the fourth that it is to the second.
Can you calculate the distance between the fourth and the first village ?
John, Jack and Jill are in a desert. John doesn't like Jill and hence decides to murder him. He poisons the water supply of Jill. Since it is a desert area, Jill must drink or he will die of thirst.
Jack does not know of the actions of John and also decides to murder Jill. To succeed in his ill motives, he removes the water supply of Jill so he dies of thirst.
A dying old man wants to divide his entire land between his only two sons. Since his only wish is to treat them as equal as both of them have been too good to him, he wants to divide his land equally between them. The problem is that the land is significantly irregular in shape and thus there is no choice of cutting them into two equal halves.
Can you help him divide the land in a manner that both of his sons will be happy?
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.