A man is trapped in a room. The room has only two possible exits doors. Through the first door there is a room constructed from magnifying glass. The blazing hot sun instantly fries anything or anyone that enters. Through the second door there is a fire-breathing dragon. How does the man escape?
You have two strings whose only known property is that when you light one end of either string it takes exactly one hour to burn. The rate at which the strings will burn is completely random and each string is different. How do you measure 45 minutes?
One absent-minded ancient philosopher forgot to wind up his only clock in the house. He had no radio, TV, telephone, internet, or any other means for telling time. So he travelled on foot to his friend's place a few miles down the straight desert road. He stayed at his friend's house for the night and when he came back home, he knew how to set his clock. How did he know?
A spaceship was lost. The detective was given a piece of paper. This was the location of the spaceship! This is what the slip had scribbled on it:
Juice, Umbrella, Potato, Ice, Tomato, Elephant, Rice.
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.
