Its something that each of us devours,
Not just us but birds, beats, trees, and flowers,
Frets iron and nibbles steel,
Toil hard stones to meal,
Exterminates king, collapse town,
And blows the mountains down.
You have two strings whose only known property is that when you light one end of either string it takes exactly one hour to burn. The rate at which the strings will burn is completely random and each string is different. How do you measure 45 minutes?
Two friends Smith and Andrew were talking about the bravery of their families. Smith told great stories about his courageous grandfather who fought for Britain in "World War I". Andrew told that his grandfather was so brave that in 1919 just after the war he was honoured with a bravery medal with the words "For our Courageous Soldiers In World War I" embedded into it. Smith knows that his friend is lying. How?
If two fifty-foot ropes are suspended from a forty-foot ceiling that is twenty feet apart, how much rope will you be able to steal if you have a knife?
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.