A research team went to a village somewhere between the jungles of Africa. Luckily for them, they reached the day when quite an interesting custom was to be performed. The custom was performed once a year as they confirmed and was performed in order to collect the taxes from every male of the region.
The taxes were to be paid in the form of grains. Everyone must pay pounds of grain equaling his respective age. This means a 20-year-old will have to pay 20 pounds of grain and a 30-year-old will pay 30 pounds of grain and so on.
The chief who collects the tax has 7 weights and a large 2-pan scale to weigh. But there is another custom that the chief can weigh only three of the seven weights.
Can you find out the weights of the seven weights? Also, what is the maximum age of the man that can be weighed for the payment of taxes?
A boy was at a carnival and went to a booth where a man said to the boy, "If I write your exact weight on this piece of paper then you have to give me $50, but if I cannot, I will pay you $50." The boy looked around and saw no scale so he agrees, thinking no matter what the carny writes he'll just say he weighs more or less. In the end the boy ended up paying the man $50. How did the man win the bet?
Find a 9-digit number, which you will gradually round off starting with units, then tenth, hundred etc., until you get to the last numeral, which you do not round off. The rounding alternates (up, down, up ...). After rounding off 8 times, the final number is 500000000. The original number is commensurable by 6 and 7, all the numbers from 1 to 9 are used, and after rounding four times the sum of the not-rounded numerals equals 24.
An octopus has 8 legs. A hippogriff has 6 legs and 2 pairs of wings. A sphinx has 6 legs and one pair of wings. Now we have all 3 kinds and a total of 18 insects in a cage. We have a total of 118 legs and 20 pairs of wings. How many insects do we have of each kind?
100 prisoners are stuck in the prison in solitary cells. The warden of the prison got bored one day and offered them a challenge. He will put one prisoner per day, selected at random (a prisoner can be selected more than once), into a special room with a light bulb and a switch which controls the bulb. No other prisoners can see or control the light bulb. The prisoner in the special room can either turn on the bulb, turn off the bulb or do nothing. On any day, the prisoners can stop this process and say "Every prisoner has been in the special room at least once". If that happens to be true, all the prisoners will be set free. If it is false, then all the prisoners will be executed. The prisoners are given some time to discuss and figure out a solution. How do they ensure they all go free?
In a picnic session, a footballer was practicing. During his play, he busted lips and ears and broke ribs and thighs. However, he was still able to play a professional match on the very next day.
The day before the 1996 U.S. presidential election, the NYT Crossword contained the clue “Lead story in tomorrow’s newspaper,” the puzzle was built so that both electoral outcomes were correct answers, requiring 7 other clues to have dual responses.
