You stand in front of two doors. A guard stands next to each door. You know the following things: one path leads to paradise, the other leads to death. You cannot distinguish between the two doors. You also know that one of the two guards always tells the truth and the other always lies. You have permission to ask one guard one question to discover which door leads to paradise. What one question would you ask to guarantee you enter the door to paradise?
If you were to put a coin into an empty bottle and then insert a cork into the neck, how could you remove the coin without taking out the cork or breaking the bottle?
Three fair coins are tossed in the air and they land with heads up. Can you calculate the chances that when they are tossed again, two coins will again land with heads up?
Your job is to measure 45 minutes if you have only two cords and matches to light the cords.
1. The two cords are twisted from various materials, so their different segments can burn at different rates.
2. Each cord burns from end to end in exactly one hour.
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.
