After teaching his class all about Roman numerals (X = 10, IX=9 and so on) the teacher asked his class to draw a single continuous line and turn IX into 6. The teacher's only stipulation was that the pen could not be lifted from the paper until the line was complete.
A chicken farmer has figured out that a hen and a half can lay an egg and a half in a day and a half. How many hens does the farmer need to produce one dozen eggs in six days?
In the picture, you can see a chess board. On the top left position, the K marks a knight. Now, can you move the knight in a manner that after 63 moves, the knight has been placed at all the squares exactly once excluding the starting square?
A swan sits at the center of a perfectly circular lake. At an edge of the lake stands a ravenous monster waiting to devour the swan. The monster can not enter the water, but it will run around the circumference of the lake to try to catch the swan as soon as it reaches the shore. The monster moves at 4 times the speed of the swan, and it will always move in the direction along the shore that brings it closer to the swan the quickest. Both the swan and the the monster can change directions in an instant.
The swan knows that if it can reach the lake's shore without the monster right on top of it, it can instantly escape into the surrounding forest.
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.