On my way to St. Ives I saw a man with 7 wives. Each wife had 7 sacks. Each sack had 7 cats. Each cat had 7 kittens. Kittens, cats, sacks, wives. How many were going to St. Ives?
A California farmer owns a beautiful pear tree. He supplies the fruit to a nearby grocery store. The store owner calls the farmer to see how much fruit is available for him to buy. The farmer knows the main trunk has 24 branches. Each branch has exactly 12 boughs and each bough has exactly 6 twigs. Since each twig bears one piece of fruit, how many plums will the farmer be able to deliver?
At the local model boat club, four friends were talking about their boats.
There were a total of eight boats, two in each colour, red, green, blue and yellow. Each friend owned two boats. No friend had two boats of the same colour.
Alan didn't have a yellow boat. Brian didn't have a red boat but did have a green one. One of the friends had a yellow boat and a blue boat and another friend had a green boat and a blue boat. Charles had a yellow boat. Darren had a blue boat, but didn't have a green one.
Can you work out which friend had which coloured boats?
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?
Four people need to cross a rickety bridge at night. Unfortunately, they have only one torch and the bridge is too dangerous to cross without one. The bridge is only strong enough to support two people at a time. Not all people take the same time to cross the bridge. Times for each person: 1 min, 2 mins, 7 mins and 10 mins. What is the shortest time needed for all four of them to cross the bridge?