When Jack was six years old he hammered a nail into his favourite tree to mark his height. Ten years later at age sixteen, Jack returned to see how much higher the nail was. If the tree grew by five centimetres each year, how much higher would the nail be?
Its something that each of us devours,
Not just us but birds, beats, trees, and flowers,
Frets iron and nibbles steel,
Toil hard stones to meal,
Exterminates king, collapse town,
And blows the mountains down.
You want to boil a two-minute egg. If you only have a three-minute timer (hourglass), a four-minute timer and a five-minute timer, how can you boil the egg for only two minutes?
The host of a game show, offers the guest a choice of three doors. Behind one is a expensive car, but behind the other two are goats.
After you have chosen one door, he reveals one of the other two doors behind which is a goat (he wouldn't reveal a car).
Now he gives you the chance to switch to the other unrevealed door or stay at your initial choice. You will then get what is behind that door.
You cannot hear the goats from behind the doors, or in any way know which door has the prize.
One night, a man runs away from home. He turns left and keeps running. After some time he turns left again and keeps running. Later, he turns left one more time and runs back home—but when he gets home, he finds a man in a mask. Who was the man in the mask?
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?
Only one colour, but not one size,
Stuck at the bottom, yet easily flies.
Present in sun, but not in rain,
Doing no harm, and feeling no pain.
What is it?
A non-stop marathon is the shared favourite sport of three brothers.
*The oldest one is fat and short and trudges slowly on.
*The middle brother's tall and slim and keeps a steady pace.
*The youngest runs just like the wind, speeding through the race.
"He is young in years, we let him run!" the other two brothers explained, "'because though he is surely number one, he is second, in a way." Why is it?
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.