You were playing ping pong with your friend. Suddenly the ball fell into a narrow metal pipe that was imbedded in the concrete surface of the floor one foot deep. Now you don't have any other ball and you desperately want to take it out and play. You and your friend have your shoelaces, your tennis paddle and a plastic water bottle. However, the bottle cannot fit into the pipe.
A man plots the murder of his wife. His plan is full proof. Nobody saw them leaving their house. He stabbed her with a knife while driving. She died on the spot. He threw her body in a valley. He threw the knife carefully wiping his finger prints on a random garbage bin. Then he went back to his home and no one was watching him this time as well.
After an hour, he was called by the local police department who informed him that his wife was murdered. They asked him to reach the scene of crime immediately. But as soon as he arrived at the crime scene, he was arrested by them.
How did the police know that he himself is the murderer?
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.
