life or death

You are a prisoner sentenced to death. The Emperor offers you a chance to live by playing a simple game. He gives you 50 black marbles, 50 white marbles, and 2 empty bowls. He then says, 'Divide these 100 marbles into these 2 bowls. You can divide them any way you like as long as you use all the marbles. Then I will blindfold you and mix the bowls around. You then can choose one bowl and remove ONE marble. If the marble is WHITE you will live, but if the marble is BLACK... you will die.'

How do you divide the marbles up so that you have the greatest probability of choosing a WHITE marble?




Similar Riddles

John is on an island and there are three crates of fruit that have washed up in front of him. One crate contains only apples. One crate contains only oranges. The other crate contains both apples and oranges.

Each crate is labelled. One reads 'apples', one reads 'oranges', and one reads 'apples and oranges'. He know that NONE of the crates have been labeled correctly - they are all wrong.

If he can only take out and look at just one of the pieces of fruit from just one of the crates, how can he label all of the crates correctly?

Asked by Neha on 07 Jan 2024


Suppose we lay down two cups in front of you. One of the cups is filled with tea and the other one with coffee. Now we ask you to take a spoonful of tea and mix it with the coffee. At this moment, the coffee cup has a mixture of tea and coffee. You have to take that mixture (spoonful) and add it back to the tea.

Can you now tell if the cup of coffee has more tea or the cup of tea has more coffee?

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John bought 150 chocolates but he misplaced some of them. His Father asked him how many chocolates were misplaced.
He gave the following answer to him:
If you count in pairs, one remains
If you count in threes, two remain
If you count in fours, three remain
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If you count in sixes, five remain
If you count in sevens, no chocolate remains.

Can you analyze the statements and tell us how many chocolates were lost?

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I had an infinite supply of water and 5 litres and 3 litres jars.

How would you measure exactly 4 litres in the least number of steps?

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Eight Chelsea player makes the following statements :

1. Seven of us are lying here.
2. Six of us are lying here.
3. Five of us are lying here.
4. Five of us are lying here.
5. Four of us are lying here.
6. Three of us are lying here.
7. My name is Torres.
8. My name is Lampard.

The last two are Lampard and Torres or maybe Torres and Lampard.
So can you deduce which of the last two is Lampard or Torres?

Asked by Neha on 14 Oct 2024

A Car driver was heading down a street in Washington. He went right past a stop sign without stopping, he turned left where there was a 'no left turn' sign and he went the wrong way on a one-way street. Then he went on the right side of the road past a cop car. Still, he didn't break any traffic laws. Why not?

Car Driver Going Wrong

Asked by Neha on 03 Mar 2021


If,
9 * 8 * 7 = 65
8 * 7 * 6 = 50
7 * 6 * 5 = 37

Find
6 * 5 * 4 = ?

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Use only one mathematical symbol and all numbers (0-9) to get a sum of 99

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Eight of us go fourth, not back, to protect our king from an attack. What are we?

Asked by Neha on 17 Apr 2022


What famous saying does this rebus mean?

COME SERVED <---
COME SERVED
COME SERVED
COME SERVED
COME SERVED

Asked by Neha on 09 Sep 2023

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Amazing Facts

Challenging

There is a cryptic organization called Cicada 3301 that posts challenging puzzles online, possibly to recruit codebreakers and linguists.