You are mixing a mixture of cement and Sand with five gallons of water. You have a garden hose giving you all the water you need. The problem is that you only have a four-gallon bucket and a seven-gallon bucket and neither has graduation marks. Find a method to measure five gallons.
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?
While preparing the table for dinner, wife came up with an idea to tease his mathematician husband. She asked her husband to pick nine toothpicks and make ten without breaking any toothpick.
The husband was also smart and did it within seconds. How ?
A convention is held where all the big logicians are summoned. The master places a band on everyone's forehead. Now all of them can see others bands but can't see his own. Then they are told that there are different colours of bands. All the logicians sit in circle and they are further explained that a bell will ring at regular intervals. The moment when a logician knew the colour of band on his forehead, he will leave at the next bell. If anyone leaves at the wrong bell, he will be disqualified.
The master assures the logicians that the puzzle will not be impossible for anyone of them. How will the logicians manage ?
Three men in a cafe order a meal the total cost of which is $15. They each contribute $5. The waiter takes the money to the chef who recognises the three as friends and asks the waiter to return $5 to the men.
The waiter is not only poor at mathematics but dishonest and instead of going to the trouble of splitting the $5 between the three he simply gives them $1 each and pockets the remaining $2 for himself.
Now, each of the men effectively paid $4, the total paid is therefore $12. Add the $2 in the waiters pocket and this comes to $14. Where has the other $1 gone from the original $15?
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.