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?

Name a key which is hardest to turn.

These types of puzzles are known as charades. What you have to do is find two words that are referred to in the first stanza and the second stanza and put them together to form the third word in the third stanza.

Just for example, if my first refers to 'off' and my second refers to 'ice', then my whole will be office.

My first is present - future's past -
A time in which your lot is cast.

My second is my first of space
Defining people's present place.

My whole describes a lack of site -
A place without length, breadth, or height.

I ask Joseph to pick any 5 cards out of a deck with no Jokers.

He can inspect then shuffle the deck before picking any five cards. He picks out 5 cards then hands them to me (Jack can't see any of this). I look at the cards and I pick 1 card out and give it back to Joseph. I then arrange the other four cards in a special way, and give those 4 cards all face down, and in a neat pile, to Jack.

Jack looks at the 4 cards i gave him, and says out loud which card Joseph is holding (suit and number). How?

The solution uses pure logic, not sleight of hand. All Jack needs to know is the order of the cards and what is on their face, nothing more.

An artist while painting a scenic beauty, decides to paint three layers of blue colour on the sky.

Which layer will go on the first?

Which tank will fill first?

There are two insects on a tile. Insect X is sitting on one side of the tile (point A) and Insect Y is sitting opposite on the other side of the tile (point B). Now both of them decide to change their position and thus X starts crawling to point B and Y starts crawling to point A. When they meet and pass each other in between, X takes 20 seconds to reach B and Y takes just 5 seconds to reach A.

Can you calculate the total time each of the insects took to change their positions?

I know a nine-letter word having only one vowel.
Do you ?

Three people check into a hotel. They pay $60 for the rent of the room. After they check-in, the manager realize that the rent for the room is $55. So, he gives $5 to the bellboy and asks him to give it to them. The bellboy thinks that it will be difficult for the three people to share $5 among them and seeking the personal benefit, he pockets $2 and gives the remaining $3 to them.

Now, each person paid $20 and got back $1. In this manner, each of them paid just $19 which totals to the amount of $57. The bellboy has $2 with him and adding them, we get $59. So where is the remaining $1?

My cousin lives in one story house in Antarctica. His house is made the of-of sandstone. what is the color of stairs?