Mr Black, Mr Gray, and Mr White are fighting in a truel. They each get a gun and take turns shooting at each other until only one person is left. Mr Black, who hits his shot 1/3 of the time, gets to shoot first. Mr Gray, who hits his shot 2/3 of the time, gets to shoot next, assuming he is still alive. Mr White, who hits his shot all the time, shoots next, assuming he is also alive. The cycle repeats. If you are Mr Black, where should you shoot first for the highest chance of survival?
If you were to put a coin into an empty bottle and then insert a cork into the neck, how could you remove the coin without taking out the cork or breaking the bottle?
There are hundred red gems and hundred blue gems. The blue gems are priceless while the red gems equal wastage. You have two sacks one labeled Heads and the other Tails. You have to distribute the gems as you want in the two sacks. Then a coin will be flipped and you will be asked to pick up a gem randomly from the corresponding sacks.
How will you distribute the gems between the sacks so that the odds of picking a Blue gem are maximum?
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.
