You order chicken wings at KFC in the boxes of 6, 9 and 20. What is the largest number of wings that you cannot obtain by buying in any combination of the boxes?
Once upon a time, there was a castle on a square island. The entire island was surrounded by a 14m wide trench. The Romans had wanted to invade the castle and had brought a few wooden planks along with them to facilitate themselves in crossing the moat. The planks were however found to be only 13m long.
The Romans still managed to cross the trench. How did they do it?
By using all numbers, i.e. 123456789 and subtraction/addition, operators number 100 can be formed in many ways.
Example: 98 + 7 + 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 + 2 - 1 = 100
But if we add a condition use of the number 32 is a must. Then there are limited solutions.
One of such solution is: 9 - 8 + 76 + 54 - 32 + 1 = 100
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.