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?
In front of you, there are 9 coins. They all look absolutely identical, but one of the coins is fake. However, you know that the fake coin is lighter than the rest, and in front of you is a balance scale. What is the least number of weightings you can use to find the counterfeit coin?
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.
