You have three orange, two pink and five purple balls in the drawer beside your bed. There is no electricity and the room is entirely dark. How many balls must you take out to ensure at least one ball of each colour at least?
Jack have ten pairs of black socks, eight pairs of white socks and seven pairs of green socks. Everything is mixed in a draw. As there is no light he were not able to identify the colour of the socks. How many of the socks did he want to take to match one pair
100 prisoners are stuck in the prison in solitary cells. The warden of the prison got bored one day and offered them a challenge. He will put one prisoner per day, selected at random (a prisoner can be selected more than once), into a special room with a light bulb and a switch which controls the bulb. No other prisoners can see or control the light bulb. The prisoner in the special room can either turn on the bulb, turn off the bulb or do nothing. On any day, the prisoners can stop this process and say "Every prisoner has been in the special room at least once". If that happens to be true, all the prisoners will be set free. If it is false, then all the prisoners will be executed. The prisoners are given some time to discuss and figure out a solution. How do they ensure they all go free?
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.