John gave half of the apples he had plus one more to Jacob. He gave half of the remaining ones plus one more to James. Now, John was left with just one apple.
Can you find out how many did he have in the beginning?
A king sentenced a man to the death sentence for some crime he had committed. Known for his kindness, the king told the culprit that he had a choice to die in a way he decides.
The culprit was clever and said something that saved him from death. What method do you think he must have chosen for his death?
If you had an infinite supply of water and 5-quart and 3-quart pails, how would you measure exactly 4 quarts? What is the least number of steps you need?
In order to complete the racing competition, the Mexico racetrack has to submit its top and the most famous three horses to win the competition. Due to an electrical storm, all the records are cleared and no one knows which horse holds the record. They all look identical and it becomes even more difficult to differentiate the horses. There are 25 horses in the Mexico racetrack. But there can be only five horses at a time on the track. What will the least number of races that can be conducted to find out the three fastest horses?
Two friends were stuck in a cottage. They had nothing to do and thus they started playing cards. Suddenly the power went off and Friend 1 inverted the position of 15 cards in the normal deck of 52 cards and shuffled it. Now he asked Friend 2 to divide the cards into two piles (need not be equal) with equal number of cards facing up. The room was quite dark and Friend 2 could not see the cards. He thinks for a while and then divides the cards in two piles.
On checking, the count of cards facing up is same in both the piles. How could Friend 2 have done 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.