You were playing ping pong with your friend. Suddenly the ball fell into a narrow metal pipe that was imbedded in the concrete surface of the floor one foot deep. Now you don't have any other ball and you desperately want to take it out and play. You and your friend have your shoelaces, your tennis paddle and a plastic water bottle. However, the bottle cannot fit into the pipe.
John and Jacob are playing bets. John gives $10 to Jacob and Jacob deals four cards out of a normal 52-card deck which are chosen by him completely randomly. Jacob keeps them facing down takes the first card and shows it to John. John has a choice of either keeping it or looking at the second card. When the second card is shown to him, he again has the choice of keeping or looking at the third which is followed by the third card as well; only if he does not want the third card, he will have to keep the fourth card.
If the card that John is choosing is n, Jacob will give it to him. Then the cards will be shuffled and the game will be played repeatedly. Now you might think that it all depends on chance, but John has come up with a strategy that will help him turn the favor in his odds.
There’s a girl who has a large family. She has an equal amount of brothers and sisters, but each brother only has half as many brothers and sisters. What’s the correct amount of brothers and sisters?
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.
