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.
Three friends decide to distribute the soda cans they had among them. When all of them had drunk four cans each, the total number of cans that remained was equal to the cans each one of them had after they had divided the cans.
Can you calculate the total number of cans before distribution?
A farmer went to a market and bought a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage. On his way home, the farmer came to the bank of a river and rented a boat. But crossing the river by boat, the farmer could carry only himself and a single one of his purchases: the wolf, the goat, or the cabbage. If left unattended together, the wolf would eat the goat, or the goat would eat the cabbage. The farmer’s challenge was to carry himself and his purchases to the far bank of the river, leaving each purchase intact. How did he do it?
John speaks the truth only once a day in a week. Below are a few hints for you:
First: Days are Sunday, Monday and so on.
Second: One day he says, "I lie on Monday and Tuesday".
Third: On the next day, he says, "Today is either Thursday, Saturday or Sunday".
Fourth: On the next day, he says, "I lie on Wednesday and Friday".
Can you identify the day on which he speaks the truth?
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.
